Unintentional Break

Well, I took another unintentional break from posting on the blog. And to be honest, I think my posts will start being less frequent in general. Partially because we are just busier, and partially because we have less going on medically right now.

Since my last post, we've had our follow up with neurosurgery. Unfortunately, the chiari decompression and tethered cord surgeries still have not shown to help improve Elliot's spinal syrinxes. We will continue to monitor these, but for now his neurosurgeon felt the progression was stable enough that we didn't have to discuss another surgery. We will have another MRI this next year to check progression, or earlier if any concerning neurological symptoms present. His oncology appointments continue to be every 3 months and we have been cleared each time, no tumors or concerns. We also had an unintentional break from therapy services due to his therapist taking a PRN position with his daycare then leaving shortly afterwards, but we have since started back with speech and feeding services. He's grown so much in his speech over the last several months, even the nursing director at his daycare has commented on how much more he's talking and that his words are clearer. We really are in a period of stability healthwise, which has been a welcome break from the chaos of the first two years of Elliot's life.

In June we got to go on our first family vacation and had an absolute blast. We kind of decided very impromptu that we had the time and the finances to do it finally and no appointments or surgeries, so we went for it. We did a Disney cruise on their newer Destiny ship, and if you have little boys that love Disney and super heroes this is the cruise for you. Elliot had an absolute blast at the beaches on Disney's private islands in the Bahamas, and we got to enjoy watching him and taking in the sights at Nassau. A Disney cruise is a great option for families due to all the on board activities available for kids.

Sail Away Party!

Elliot loved all the artwork on the ship!

Donald was one of Elliot's favorites to meet!

This boy was made for private island life.

Elliot started preschool a few weeks ago and seems to really like it thus far. He's even been more open to trying to swallow solids since starting and we are routinely getting a few bites of solids down at least every 2-3 days. That may not sound like much to most people, but man it's been exciting to realize he can do it, just needs the confidence and practice to be able to be successful on solids. His speech therapist at daycare is going to work on this as well.

First Day of Preschool!

Our biggest news of the year is that Elliot is going to be a big brother! After last year's ectopic rupture/pregnancy loss, we had decided to no longer try for another baby and stopped fertility medications. But life is funny and on April 8th I went to donate blood and realized my period was late after answering their questionnaire. But, given my history I thought there was no way it was due to pregnancy. But later that night I couldn't get it out of my head and took a test and it was positive. So we are preparing for a December baby and Elliot couldn't be happier about getting a little sissy.

We can't wait to see Elliot with his little sister!