Entertainment x 2

Good morning or is it good night when it is 12:35 am? No nurse tonight, so I am on night duty bountifully trying to find something to do to keep me awake. Lucky for you, if you are reading this. If you were here, you would be watching National Treasure for the 1,000^th time with me too.

It has been a quite week around here for the most part, but that quietness all ended today. Officially Walker is out for summer, whooo hoo! But quickly let me catch you all up on Ivey. Since her trach has been out life has not been exactly what I had expected. First off, I knew there would be more time, and there is. However, it seemed in my trachless dreams that we would be out do more things, just having a ball, living It UP. Well, we have when we haven't been sleeping. It seems that she and I have both crashed. Matt explained to me that my adrenaline level in my bloodstream has dropped-significantly; therefore, I sleep (except for tonight). And what do you know, Ivey has been in a great mood, and her momma has too. Sleep works wonders.

Second, Ivey did have an appointment with her GI doc today. Let me just praise him for one moment. He is awesome partly because he cuts through the red tape and doesn't fluff me, but mainly because he comes here to Floyd twice a month so it is one less trip to Scottish Rite. Love it. He has also been with Ivey since almost day one, because he happened to be in Rome when she was born. To Dr. GI she looks GREAT! She has put on weight – a whole whopping 10ish ounces in a week and a half (an Ivey record). That puts her on the scales at 16 pounds 15 ounces. He thinks she will make it onto the growth chart eventually if she keeps growing at this rate.

We also discussed her eating habits; this is an area I rarely discuss with the general population because it is so subject to personal opinion; there fore, it is also a very sensitive area for me. Ivey does not eat. Right now we are working on food for taste, which is a huge jump for Ivey. For almost two years she has not tolerated food, and especially liquids, in her mouth and she is extremely particular as to the type of food, consistency, how much and how it is introduced to her. Like I said lots of opinions here, but keep in mind children with mental disabilities tend to have more feeding issues, blind children can have feeding issues, trached children can have feeding issues, children susceptible to aspirating can have feeding issues, children with cleft lip/palates can have feeding issues, and children who have endured 'trauma' can have feeding issues. Also, Ivey is fed so frequently through her tube that she is always 'full'. She has three bolus feeding a day running at about 1 hour a piece. She then has a 10 hour continual feed through the night. So food has no direct meaning to her. Let's just say we have a few mountains to climb when it comes to feeding. Ivey does have a SLP (speech/language) who comes once a week to work toward eating and other oral issues.

So I asked Dr. GI the million dollar question. What is his opinion about her eventually eating, wanting food? It was no surprise when he said it could still take a few years. No fluffing. This is encouraging news. She will do it. It will just take time, just like everything else. Patience and time.

He also inquired about Ivey's hobby of taking her prosthetic eyes out and at times, placing them in her mouth. When she was trached it was not such a huge concern. Even if she swallowed an eye she could still breathe. Now that she is not trached we have to be a little more observant of her eyes. Also, those eyes ain't cheap and he is worried he might have to go fishing for one.

That brings me to last Sunday at church. After communion Walker we decided to quietly (like church mice) exit from church. That is until we got to the door and Matt noticed that we were missing an essential eye. Lord only knew where that eye was for the next few minutes (and I mean that literally). We had just marched across our isle, up to the front of the church, kneeled, walked back around to our section of pews, grabbed our 'stuff' and quietly tiptoed (yeah right) to the back door of the sanctuary. We were heading quietly out the door when Matt saw it, or didn't see it. So there I had to march back to our seat whisper to Jayne that we lost an eye and then both of us went to scanning the floor. I was silently praying that she did not drop it in the furnace grate, when I hear Matt 'whispering' my name from the back of the church – he apparently had found it somewhere 'in' Ivey's dress. Shouldn't he have looked before he sent me on a pilgrimage to the front of the church? Remember everyone is still seated, taking communion, only the choir is singing. Needless to say, we drew attention to ourselves. Like I have told you all before, God must really have one strange since of humor. Exactly why our lives are so amusing to him I would love to know.