Champion Water Chugger

Dan made it back from his work trip safely and we are happy to have him home. The week has been pretty standard, but today we received some news that wasn't ideal. I brought Elijah in for his 4-month post-surgery urology check-up. Things are better since surgery, but not great. He will need to have another dilation, this time followed by needing to be cathed DAILY for six months following. It's a bit of a punch in the gut. We were hoping to put this hurdle in our past. As always, we WILL get through this and come out stronger and hopefully Elijah will be finally be healed from this particular obstacle.

At his last urology appointment (before the last surgery), the doctor required that he have a full bladder and we ended up being in the office for 2.5 hours waiting for his bladder to fill up. This time he needed a full bladder, as well, so when we walked in Elijah declared, "We are NOT going to be here forever like last time." The nurse did an ultrasound to check bladder size and informed us that it wasn't full enough. I looked over and saw Elijah absorb this news and then proceed to start CHUGGING an entire bottle of water. He set it down and asked for a refill and then CHUGGED the entire second bottle, which was followed by, "We are NOT going to be here forever." Sure enough, a few minutes later his bladder was full. We were in and out in less than an hour! :) I loved his determination. I did not, however, like the two very urgent pee stops we had to make on our way home.

Elijah has been waking up super early again (3-4:00a), so a few mornings ago out of desperation I pulled him into bed with me and squeezed him tight with the Hug Machine in mind. It worked! The first night I tried it, he was up at 3:30 and my Mama Hug Machine helped him to sleep until 5:40! He NEVER would have gone back to sleep on his own without it. I don't know if I'll do it every day (I will occasionally need more than 5 hours of sleep/night), but it's good to know it helps!

We don't know much else this week! Have a great weekend!