update and slideshow

Noah's been sleeping for several hours now. Once his nerve block wore off, the pain got ahead of him very quickly. After a couple of doses of IV morphine, a dose of IV toradol, and some IV benadryl, he finally fell into an exhausted sleep. I am SO thankful that he's been able to rest and I hope he'll feel better when he wakes up.

I finally got Noah's slideshow uploaded to You Tube. I just realized that the music stops partway through - I'll need to wait until I'm more rested to figure out how to fix that. :-) (If anyone knows how to make music look in Picasa-made movies, please let me know.)



I think I can safely say that last week was the best week of Noah's life. It was just so amazing to see him living life as a regular little boy in so many ways. He felt wonderful for our first couple of days - he had more energy and more smiles than we'd seen in many, many months, and I'm so thankful for the gift of seeing him like that once more. Wednesday afternoon he very suddenly wore out completely for no apparent reason and from that point on he was very, very tired and struggling with pain and nausea. We let him set the pace, resting when he needed to rest and doing things when he felt up to doing them.

I was once again amazed by my brave and determined little guy - for example, he spent hours Thursday morning lying on the couch. We were running pain meds and naseau meds as often as we could, but he still said he was hurting "everywhere." When we got word that the canoes were ready, I was fully prepared to stay in the cabin with him, but he wouldn't hear of it. We had to carry him on and off his raft, but he did it!!

Thanks to the Kubotas and golf cart at our disposal, Noah didn't have to walk anywhere unless he felt like it. This really helped us help him conserve energy for important stuff like catching fish and throwing rocks in the river. :-)

If anyone out there is looking for a really worthy cause to support, please consider a donation to Camp New Hope (www.campnewhopenc.com). It's staffed completely by wonderful, generous, compassionate volunteers who are making a difference in the lives of more than 40 families a year!!

Thank you for your continued prayers for Noah. The hospital pharmacy doesn't stock Caldolor (his IV ibuprofen), so we've been cleared to bring some from home to try tomorrow. Basically, we'll be here until we get good pain control - if we can control the pain with our Caldolor, we can leave, but if not we'll need to stay so he can get stronger drugs.

Blessings,
Kate