Sunday

Brody has been feeling "relatively" well however he gets tired very easily and when he is tired it amplifies his crankiness. He had late afternoon/evening naps the last 3 days (he is sleeping now). He enjoyed his cousins and aunts and uncles visiting this weekend. We tried to squeeze some fun in when we could but unfortunately they had to go home... Grandma and Grandpa and Great Grandma are coming up tomorrow to visit.

We have struggled to try and get him drink enough. I guess he got lazy drinking when he was hooked to an IV last week. He has continued to get some blood in his urine both in his nephrostomy tubes and when he pees-- not a lot but it is still red tinted-- this has us concerned. It is normal to have some of this after getting the nephrostomy tubes but we were expecting it to have cleared up by now. He is still not getting much out of his left side however since he is urinating, it may be producing more then we think and is passing though his ureter to his bladder instead of out his tubes-- hard to know for sure. We are still struggling to get used to having 2 nephrostomy tubes (the one last time was more then enough to deal with)

He still doesn't have much of an appetite-- we are struggling to get him some nutrients in the limited food he does eat. He fills up pretty fast.

He seems to feel ok when he is rested and isn't having any pain. He has managed to take his oral meds ok although it does cause him some anxiety-- it took about 30 minutes to get him to take his Bactrim last night. We have re-instituted our reward system for him to help with taking the meds-- we will be stocking a prize cabinet and he gets a playing card worth 25 cents each time he has to take an oral med or get a poke. He did real good with his meds last time around but I don't think he remembers how well he did-- we do recall having issues with him getting used to doing them at the beginning.

Trish and I are tolerating this as well as can be expected. I've lost about 12 pounds in the last month. I haven't slept well since all this went down-- I can fall asleep ok, but wake up after 5 or 6 hours--- Ironically I think I got more sleep when Brody was in the hospital. Trish is the opposite-- she has trouble falling asleep but does ok after she does fall asleep.

Geordi and Jaden seem to be ok-- I'm sure they are at least somewhat jealous of Brody getting his way most of the time again. They are up the street at a friends house right now while Brody and Trish take a nap.

We do want to once again thank everyone for all the gifts, assistance, and prayers we have received as we go through all this. It has made this very trying experience that much easier to deal with.

Bill