In Control

No, we don't have our holidays mixed up, but we do wish we would have had this costume for Halloween! It was passed down from some good friends of ours. Joaquin's been growing like a weed lately and I had thought that we needed to get him some long sleeved shirts for the cold weather we have returned to, but I found plenty of them - along with a bear costume! We also found some little shoes that fit him now, as you can tell in the picture.

Since we've been home, I've been feeling better. I feel more relaxed and in control of our situation now that we're a good 250 miles away from the doctors. Don't get me wrong, they're all good doctors, it just feels good to be out of their clutches. Joaquin has been thriving even more since we've been home. He's getting very good at walking - I think he prefers walking to crawling. He's got two more teeth and he's working on another tooth.

He's a snacking monster lately too. He loves to snack on whatever we're eating, especially a little treat that I make: walnuts, dates, coconuts all put together in a food processor and then rolled into balls. They're his favorites. He's also a fan of bananas, bread, and veggies. I made a really yummy butternut tomato soup that he devoured. I'm a big fan of spicey things and Joaquin's made it very apparent to us that he's not into spicy foods, so that's one thing I've got to learn - to tone down the spicy.

We go back down to Palo Alto on Sunday because not only do we have a clinic appointment, we also have a xenopax infusion. The xenopax is only an inpatient thing and should be done with in a few hours. The only thing about it is that they have to place an IV and that can sometimes be tricky with Joaquin.

As far as everything else, Joaquin's been doing good. His Prograf levels have been low and we're not sure why, so we've been doing the blood draws liberally - as in every day. No fun, but must be done. We've found two phlebotomists in town that do a relatively good job drawing blood from a little guy like Joaquin. I'm hoping that soon his Prograf levels will decide to settle into something more consistent so that we don't have to do blood draws (almost) every day. Sometimes I feel down about doing blood draws every day still, but then I realize that after we do that, the day belongs to us. I don't feel like we are just waiting around to go back to the hospital or to clinic. And once we go to once a month clinic visits, I will probably feel it more.