Keeping up with Four Joneses!

Good morning!  I just realized it's been awhile since I posted and update and now is a great time!  It's Thanksgiving Eve and we have so much to be thankful for!  Honestly, I could go on and on!  We are most thankful for our family, our friends, our jobs, our coworkers and this year, our health!  We celebrate Austin daily, but today is special! Today he is officially 3 months old!  It's seems surreal as Austin has spent over half of his life in the hospital, but that is behind us!  He is stable, happy and making leaps and bounds with his progress!  Brian and I are thankful for help!  The nurses from PHS started last week and we are in the middle of another large adjustment, but I would say we are doing very well at handing over most of Austin's medical cares to them.  We trust them and know he is in amazing hands!  We can be parents to both Max and Austin and spend our time playing, loving, and enjoying Austin's coos and smiles and Max's hoops, trains and air

Austin had his appointment with Dr. Valusek yesterday afternoon.  All went well.  She was very pleased with how he's doing and that we are continuing to be able to go up on his continuous and oral feeds.  The big discussion was around his ostomy.  It looks good so no concerns.  The soonest they would take it down would be 6 weeks (we are nearing 9 weeks post op this Friday), so we are already past that mark.  They like to leave it as long as he's tolerating it because it allows the gut to heal and it's inevitable that when he has the surgery it will set back his progress fairly significantly.  So, we will return to the clinic in January unless he begins having issues/concerns. When the decision is made that it's time to take down the ostomy and connect his small intestine (bowels) back to his large intestine (colon), they will also replace his PEG (g-tube) with a MIC-KEY button.  This is a much smaller and more simple access on his abdomen.  We could do this sooner, b

First I want to apologize, this post is long overdue!  First question almost always is:  how's Austin?  Second question is:  how are you and Brian?  Third question is: how is Max doing with all of this? I can confidently say the boys are doing fantastic!  Austin loves being at home and continues to grow and thrive!  He's a pretty chill little guy and gives us more smiles than tears.  I'll get to his medical update in a minute.  Max also loves being home.  He has mentioned the hospital on only a couple occasions.  He is very good to "Baby Brother" and will go cheek to cheek or give him kisses on his forehead.  Max is constantly asking about whoever is not with him at the time.  He is a very sweet and caring little boy!  We celebrated his 2nd birthday on October 29th and 2 days later we did a little trick or treating in Grammy and Call Papa's neighborhood!  He wasn't so sure at first, but he sure made a cute frog! Now, as for Brian and I.  As you ca