What?!

Zoe is doing great. It feels so good to say that. She has been in rehab for over a week and has made some amazing strides. She is walking, has started on stairs, using both her arms almost equally (she has some left side weakness), and is close to getting her feeding tube out. We will probably be taking her home this Friday. I feel like this time she will be ready. Her spirits are also so much better. She is more interested in playing and having fun than anything else...as it should be. We take daily walks in the beautiful garden here at Emanuel, and yesterday she even played in the grass barefoot, picked flowers, and buried her stuffed animals in a pile of grass. She said "this is the time of my life." My heart was bursting because it was also the time of my life!

She has started on real food again after almost 5 weeks, but is not very interested yet. Her doc said that when young children don't eat for long periods of time they can forget how or no longer be interested in food. She hasn't forgotten how, but she would rather play with it than eat it...even lasagna believe it or not (her favorite). I think if we shut off her feedings through her tube more and give her the opportunity to get hungrier that she will show more interest.

Henry, on the other hand, has not been a happy camper. Last Tuesday he went into the ER with a severe headache and vomiting. He ended up spending three nights in the hospital with a case of viral meningitis. It started out as a simple intestinal bug that lasted a couple of days and then about 10 days later had infected his spinal fluid and turned into meningitis. This can happen when you've been under stress and are immune compromised. Zoe and I never had the intestinal bug that he did, and chances are it never would have gone to meningitis for us if we did have it. He just got lucky I guess. I took him home on Friday, and he's been suffering alone while I stay here at the hospital with Zoe. It felt very bizarre having him sick and in his own room two floors above Zoe, and trying to go between the two of them. The docs actually kept Zoe and I in isolation all day Wednesday before they determined for sure that he had viral and not bacterial meningitis (which is very dangerous and contagious). They were afraid that we might have it because of our close contact with him. He is still very miserable and feeling terrible...and there isn't a whole lot I can do to help. Zoe was actually going to be discharged last Friday, but the rehab doc opted to keep her for another week so she wouldn't have to be home with sick dad. So, hopefully Henry will be feeling better soon, it takes 7-10 days for the virus to process out of him just like any other virus. He has been having waves of feeling a little better, and then back to feeling terrible so it's hard to tell where he stands.

missing you all!
Colleen