Animals

Caelan is all about his zoo animals lately...

This picture was taken before his surgery.  We were teaching Ronan all about the animals, what they ate, what sounds they make and how to sign their names.  Caelan is such a good brother.

Since his surgery he's played with his animals a few times but he's still not himself.  He's been feeling pretty lousy and we've had lots of snuggles to try and help him feel better.  He's required lots of suctioning.  I've probably suctioned him more in the past couple days than I have in the past couple years.  Coughing obviously hurts his throat.  So does talking with his trache blocked, something he's grown quite accustomed to doing.  As a result he's been more quiet than he has in ages too.   You can tell when his throat hurts because he's not swallowing and gathering saliva in the back of his throat.  When it becomes to much he'll often get stuck in a coughing episode that instantly brings tears running down his grimaced face.  It breaks my heart.  I'm better with it drooling out and I've even tried to get him to spit it out if I notice that it's pooling.

He's already coughed up the blood that we were forewarned would happen and I've spoke to ENT because it happened earlier than we thought it should.  Apparently it could still happen again, so I'm glad I called before crossing that off our checklist of things to expect.  I hadn't even mentioned it to our night nurses yet because I thought we still had a few days before we should see it.

This morning I see a bit more of Caelan, especially compared to yesterday morning.  However we've been told that he'll seem good for a couple days and then get worse than ever and that makes me nervous.  It's been hard seeing him in pain the past couple days and it's nice to see him happier this morning.

I'm so proud of him.  Despite all of his pain and discomfort he's still such a good big brother.  There have been several times that Ronan has had to be put down crying because Caelan needs attention, and through all the tears he's signing that Ronan needs his froggy soother.  His concern for his baby brother is admirable considering his condition...