For Brady...from Joseph

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A Week After

Joseph driving down a hallway of a hospital. Scary.

He was just looking for a vending machine. Despite his hip pain and one leg still in a cast, Joseph is doing pretty good. It's the people around him that's sort of plagued by various medical condition. Thank God that Brady's knee is feeling much better. My bad diet and heredity, on the other hand, are impacting my general health but I'm hopeful that I can definitely do something about it. Joseph's Nana is still having some medical issues, but again, we are optimistic that she is on the mend.

Last Sunday, Austin, Joseph and I visited Daddy at work. This was his third visit to the charity hospital that his Daddy works at. It was a short visit, but it's always nice to go to a hospital NOT because of Joseph's medical condition. Next Friday, we'll see the ortho again and we'll see what happens next.

Did I ever mention how much Joseph loves food?

Here he was getting a treat from an ice cream truck/van for the very first time. Austin was very amused that our little town actually had an ice cream truck/van going around this summer.


Then recently, we took Joseph to an IHOP for the first time.

He loved tasting everything as usual.

Before we went to IHOP, we had to do a little grocery-shopping at a WalMart store. And Joseph thrilled us and made us proud when he drove up to a little pretty girl maybe a bit older than him and told her "Hi!" It didn't matter that she ignored him. Such courage and confidence at such a young age.

Tonight I was in the office working on some paperwork when Brady called me

because Joseph wanted me to see him ASAP. I found him like this.

It has been a few months since Joseph was able to lie on his tummy. That was his usual position whenever he watched reruns of "The Upside Down Show" on Nick Jr. With his (L) hip hurting him a lot and now with a cast on his right leg, I never thought I would see this again. So, I thought I would share. He stayed like this for about half an hour.

I just thought of doing this impromptu post tonight to help me refocus on the important things/persons in my life. It helps me on days when I didn't particularly like being at work for whatever reason. It sure did the trick tonight.

Ortho Appointment/Mini Vacation

It seems like the past few weeks have been complicated by visits to a doctor or the hospital, and even hospital admits for a couple of people we care deeply about. After some uncertainty about whether we should go ahead with our trip to New Orleans last Sunday due to an unforeseen circumstance, we went ahead as planned and got settled in the hotel at around 8 that night. Our appointment with the ortho doctor was for 8AM the following morning, and we had to be there 15 minutes earlier. That was an unusually early time for Joseph and Mommy.

I did my husband proud by getting up early, and we arrived at Children's Hospital even earlier than 7:45. Of course, we didn't get to see the doctor until 9:30 or so. Considering it was Memorial Day Holiday, the waiting room was full. Joseph found some things to amuse him while we waited.

The ortho doctor, Dr. H, was pleasant enough, very professional and answered all our questions. He didn't respond to Joseph's interruptions, though, as our boy kept saying "Doctor, doctor, let me tell you something." Dr. H gave us some possible options to manage Joseph's hip pain and his bilateral hip subluxation. They included symptomatic treatment of pain and three surgical options that I would not bother to write here for now. They all sounded very invasive and painful. We didn't really explore and discuss the options in detail, as the right femur has to heal first before Dr. H would even x-ray the hips. Dr. H. also talked about doing some spinal x-rays to check for scoliosis. Brady and I both wish that we had a local pediatric orthopod so that Joseph could have seen one when he was much younger. But you know, we are at a geographical disadvantage and it's not that we could just take days off at work whenever we wanted to. That's what I tell myself whenever I'm "beating" myself up for not being as proactive as other SMA parents in that they're able to see Dr. Bach, Dr. Schroth, Dr. Swoboda, Dr. Wang, etc. I would like to believe that Brady and I have done a pretty good job with Joseph, considering he's now 6 1/2 years, with only Dr. Khan, the pediatric intensivist helping us along the way. Okay, this is me convincing myself that we've always tried to do the best for Joseph. I just wish sometimes that I had done some things differently. Anyway, Dr. H. wanted Joseph to have a long leg cast instead of the splint. We will go back in three weeks to remove the cast and take hip x-rays, etc. Brady and I have a lot of research to do about the surgical options.

We left the hospital after 10, and drove around in downtown New Orleans. We decided to wait until the next day to go to the Insectarium. We found a place to eat in the French Quarter area. Joseph loved it and even proclaimed that Landry's was the best restaurant in the world. That was until we had lunch at Golden Corral the following day. Brady and I love to eat out whenever we can, and although Joseph can't eat by mouth, you can't stop him from tasting everything.

The following day, Joseph reminded us that we had to go to the Insectarium. So we went.

It was an okay attraction. I guess, Brady and I were just ready to head home three hours away.

Joseph wanted to taste some bugs. But this was the only bug that we let him taste.

It was a good trip. Sort of a very "mini" vacation for us.