Asher Update

It's been a long week down here in the ABQ. We are awaiting labs on Asher to see if he has yet a new health issue for us to tackle.  In the meantime, he has been to the doctors three times already this week (we canceled his Friday therapy appointment...too many doctors).  We saw GI on Wednesday and they sounded the alarm that Asher was in dire condition based on a drastic drop in his weight that would have put him in the 20th percentile (from the 74th).  After recommending about 20 labs, a stool sample, possibly a skeletal survey and full body scan, and a handful of other things, I pulled the mom card and said 'no' to everything, instead making a desperate (possibly sobbing) phone call to our pediatrician's office to see if they could have Asher evaluated by a registered dietician (because of course, the Children's Rehabilitation Hospital does not have an RD or nutritionist on staff... figure that one out).  It just so happened that they were able to squeeze us in later that day at our peds clinic.  At our appointment with Shannon, she pulled up Asher's growth curves and with a very puzzled look on her face, told us she wasn't sure where the GI provider got her percentile from.  Asher was in the 50th (still down from the 74th), not the 20th.  Which is a big difference.  A BIG DIFFERENCE.  (...GI provider is now on my 'punch in the nose' list).  There are still some questions as to why Asher has dropped signficantly in a short period of time, which we are going to be monitoring with weekly weight checks and hopefully fixing with a big overhaul of his diet.  We are officially in Operation Blubber Bubble over here.  Everything (and I mean everything) is having a nice dollop of fat added to it.

Flirting shamelessly with the nurse at the rehab hospital.  Oh Asher...

Round 1 of Asher's new and improved diet: soymilk, avocados, hummus, coconut cream, coconut oil, multivitamin, hemp, tofu.  Oh, and because the week hasn't been difficult enough, we watched our car get hit by an enormous flatbed truck in the grocery store parking lot.  Fantastic.

Dipping his cracker in coconut cream (pretty much straight fat).  I don't know if my mom heart has been this happy in a long time.  Eat baby eat. 

How does one cope with the stress of a week like this?  A before noon picnic in the park with Kira & Bucket.  Blueberries, hummus, and sangria.  Yay.

Asher is quite fond of his new puppy puppet from Grandma Julie.