Today was Dallas's first day of "school."  He is doing the summer program in Burnsville, so he will attend 2 days per week, for 2.5 hours at a time.  We are beyond excited about this program.  The program has an emphasis on speech and language, however they also sign with him while he is there.  The most heart-warming part for me is just seeing him interact and be around other kids who also have a hearing loss.  It will be fun to watch him, not only this summer, but throughout next year as he begins to interact more with the other kids.  I was there for a good hour of his day today, just filling out paperwork and talking with staff, so I was able to keep an eye on Dallas and watch him play.  He didn't notice or seem to mind when I left and did no crying while I was gone!  Overall, I'd say for a first day he did pretty well.

He is on a maintenance antibiotic indefinitely for now to see if that helps with his health.  So far, it seems to be doing the trick.  We have had a solid week of a happy, eating, sleeping, drinking kid and it's been wonderful.  You don't really realize how much illness adds to your stress level until its gone.  Then it's like "Why am I so much happier?, "What was my problem the last few weeks?"  Well, it's because life is easier when health is good.  I think that fits for everyone!

We are contemplating a saliva-gram...this test would look at Dallas's saliva and see if he is aspirating on it.  I had brought this up to his ENT as a potential cause of the pneumonia's and he agreed to order the test, but part of me wonders if it is really necessary or not. According to his pediatrician and his pulmonologist, his chest x-rays looked more viral than bacterial. It's just difficult for me to believe that his back to back pneumonia's and then a cold, were all viral.  I can't shake the feeling that he is aspirating which is causing a bacterial infection in his lungs, which has then lead to the cough, runny nose, difficulty breathing, etc.

As for the new baby boy "D," we hit the 20 week mark this week and had our ultrasound.  We were relieved hearing that all of the organs and baby's growth looked good.  With that relief, I felt mixed emotion remembering how awful that ultrasound had gone with Dallas.  I knew that going through another pregnancy after Dallas was going to bring back feelings, I just didn't realize how hard it would be to deal with that.




Back home and still smiling after 1st day of school