More on Today

Rebekah has shown bursts of energy today. By energy I mean that she wanted to sit in mom's arms in the living room instead of continuing to lay in her bed. At one point, she sat in mom's arms for about an hour. Another couple of times she sat for a half hour or so. Once, she wanted down so that she could go get her sister's sippy cup for her and she helped mom carry her backpack with her to get it.

We hope that the combination of the TPN (nutrition) and the lack of Radiation on Saturday and Sunday will help her to feel better. Also, we have set up a humidifier in her room to help keep her secretions moist so that hopefully the coughing won't hurt quite so bad.

Another blessing late this week is that the sores on her forehead are healing. She has scratched some of the scabs off (or they have rubbed of when Mom has put ointment on her face) and they are healing instead of being raw again. That is exciting to see. With the difficulty that she has had with the sores scabbing over, it surprised me to see them healing.

Grandma M has spent much of the week with us this past week although she is home for the weekend. It has been a HUGE help to have her home with us. At times, just caring for Rebekah takes two of us. Tonight Grandma A stopped by and picked up Sarah for the weekend. I'm sure they will have lots of fun and then we can focus on Rebekah and hopefully get a little rest. We have tried to keep Sarah close to Rebekah, because they seem to thrive on each other. Right now, with Rebekah sleeping so much and not wanting to do much, we thought it might be ok to have them apart.

Rebekah's weight was up about half a pound since Tuesday. That is with two days of nutrition in her. We are glad it was an increase and not a decrease. She currently gets the TPN (nutrition) for 18 hours each day. We thought that would give her 6 hours to play freely. Since she hasn't been playing, I asked the doctor if there was any reason to up that to 24 hours. She checked and told me that she is getting 100% of the nutrition she needs, so if we increased the time to 24 hours we would decrease the rate. No real reason to do that.

Miss Sarah (at 11 months old) is totally walking. There is no denying it now - Mom and Dad were in denial for quite some time. She will squat down and pick up toys and carry them around. She will change directions without problem. She is also a climber. She will climb up on a stool next to Rebekah's bed and tries to climb onto the bed, but it is just a little too tall for her. She has been known to move things next to the couch to climb on it, too. She doesn't seem to have any fear.

We have had a number of visitors this week and meals brought to us most days. That has been a blessing. It is great to not have to worry about what we will have to eat. Thanks to everyone who has helped with that.

We hope everyone has a good weekend.