Update

This week was busy with many appointments for Mason.

On Tuesday, he had an upper GI, neck x-rays and a follow-up with his Pediatric Surgeon. He absolutely hated the neck x-rays, I can't even explain in words how uncomfortable it looked. We had a little episode of bleeding around his g-tube after the x-rays. He was restrained and trying to squirm so much that the tissue around the tube got extremely irritated and started to bleed. When that stopped, he had his upper GI. He didn't enjoy that either. Food taken by mouth will go into his stomach only if he is held upright. Mason's esophagus does not work very well at pushing the food down by itself. The docs may need to scope his esophagus in a few months to make sure everything is structurally ok. Until then, he is allowed to eat by mouth if we hold him upright for 30 minutes afterwards.

We tried to feed him a little bit of banana baby food and he actually liked it. We just gave him little bits on our finger and he licked it off. He actually ate 1/2 a teaspoon of it last night. This is a HUGE step for Mason! We will continue feeding him little amounts and we plan on giving applesauce a try next week.

Mason also had his Early On evaluation on Thursday. Since Mason has a qualifying health issue, he is eligible for special education until age 3 through our school district. The evaluation went pretty well. Mason is on target and actually advanced with his social skills. His gross and fine motor skills are behind. Even though he can sit without support and can stand and balance grabbing onto our hands, he has skipped the normal baby floor milestones. Mason will rock from side to side, but with not roll over from his back to tummy or tummy to back. He has just started to try and roll over from his back to his tummy. He is close, but not quite there yet. We have lots of homework with his neck muscles and tummy time (wish us luck). The therapists are discouraging his standing and sitting until he can become more proficient on the floor. We return for another session on January 10th.

We also had to "reverse" his crib so that he is looking to the right to see us enter the room and also to see his crib toys. It doesn't seem to work as well with his g-tube and nighttime chimney feeds. We may have to create a compromise somehow. We will see how tonight goes.

We hope that everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!