Before I start the recap of October though, I would like to make a mention that Lorelei started at a new school this year. I missed getting a bunch of 'First Day of School' pictures, but did snap off the one below on her first day. School started three days after we'd moved and I wasn't as organized as I would have liked.
On October 2nd, Ethan had his staples removed during his visit to the orthopedic surgeon. There were 40 this time and his incision is half as long as the first surgery because they only removed the top portions of the rods. I didn't watch them remove the staples from his spine, but did watch Ethan's reactions. For some of them he didn't even seem to notice they were doing anything...but others really made him flinch.
We've been back to the orthopedic surgeon again this month and Ethan got a good report! We don't go back to see them until the start of December. It is nice to know that he is doing so well this time. He has started to guard again at times when he is moved, but the surgeon thought that could be because he remembers how much it used to hurt. I hope he's right as I get nervous when he does it because that was the start to his rod letting go the last time.
Ethan has been having some issues at night about 2 hours after his final feed of the day. We think it is related to his digestion. We saw his GI doctor last month and he suggested we change up Ethan's feed a bit. We're trying that but haven't seen a whole lot of change yet. We may end up switching it again if we're not able to resolve his gas, withholding, etc. issues.
The other specialist Ethan saw in October was the Endocrinologist. I think his appointments thus far have got to be the best. We had to do some blood work for the appointment and then they just measure and weigh him. Turns out his Vitamin D levels are good as is his calcium levels. We can't improve his bone health any until we get him weight bearing more...but hopefully that will come. We get to wait a year before we see them again.
We had a miserable September and parts of if spilled over into October. We used to have night nursing twice a week to help us get a bit of rest, but they pulled the nurses until we change something relating to Ethan's bed (which he has been using since January). He has been pushing out his adult front teeth and has not been sleeping all that well (in addition to his gas issues and needs for repositioning). Thus we were quite delighted to send him to therapy last week. I think I would have cried if he got sick or for some other reason couldn't go. I missed him terribly but must say it was nice to go to sleep and stay that way for more than a couple hours all night long!
We also missed celebrating Halloween with him though. I was glad to hear though that they carved a pumpkin and celebrated while he was in therapy. They sent home a great picture of him pulling out the insides with a somewhat grossed out look on his face - priceless! :)
At home, Clayton did a great job of carving the pumpkins again this year. Lorelei helped out and enjoyed playing with the 'guts'. You'll notice one of the pictures is her creation from the guts. Although we didn't get everything done that I'd planned, I was able to create a Halloween wreath, bake cupcakes for Lorelei's class (from a box not ambitious enough to do from scratch), roasted pumpkins, created the leaves for my 'costume' and did mine and Lorelei's face painting (unfortunately, you can't see the makeup that great in the photo, it was more obvious in real life).
