Living My Dreams With CF: Alayna 17 Month Post

Another month has gone and past. Today, you are 17 months old! It so happens to be St. Patty’s day as well. Happy St. Patty’s! You have to always embrace your Irish heritage Alayna. I guess that is where you get your fair skin from.

Before I get into talking about all the exciting new things you have been doing and that lovely gastroenterology appointment, barium swallow x-ray, and hitting your head on our bed, I wanted to reflect on a year ago. Here is the post from your 5 month update.

After I read your 5 month post I almost fell out of my chair. I have no idea where all this time is going and I wish we could pause it for a little bit. Mommy and I both cherish every day with you even when you have your not so favorite days. But I have to say you are a FANTASTIC toddler! When you read this one day do not let that get to your head as I am sure you will rub that in our face one day, how perfect of an angel you were.

A year ago you were becoming more flexible eating your toes and sucking your thumb. It looks like the toe eating has subsided but the thumb sucking looks to have no end in sight. During your 5 months you began to finally lay on your belly and even rolled over from belly to back. I can still see this in my head as your mom and I left the room for a second to see if you would roll over. What a feeling that was to see you progressing. Today, you are like a toddler full of sugar RUNNING all over the house. You even climb up the stairs with no assistance. If I compare your social awareness from a month ago you no longer just smile at people. You now will say hi and give the occasional wave. Yes, we are going to be in major trouble with you once you get to be a little older. In fact, the other day you pointed at a toddler (of course he was a boy) in a cart at the grocery store and called him be be!! That is how you say baby. We asked his father how old he was and he was only a month older than you!! I guess you will be picking up the boys in NO time. Just remember daddy has the final say when it comes to any man that comes into this house! Sorry, you will always be my baby girl even when you THINK you are an adult.

You still seem to really enjoy food, naps, and you are still one of the happiest now toddlers. We have been very blessed to have a happy Alayna in our house. I think we wouldn’t know what to do if you were a fussy toddler because we really haven’t experienced that with you. I guess I should say we have not had many episodes where you are beyond fussy except for this past month.

Before we get into what caused your fussiness lets begin with the ever so exciting gastro dr. visit. We originally had scheduled this appointment to figure out why you had diarrhea for what seemed like FOREVER. THANKFULLY, the diarrhea episodes finally went away as you were diagnosed with toddler diarrhea. But the gastro dr. did let us know that we should expect this toddler diarrhea thing to come back again sometime maybe a few years down the road. If it does come back I hope you are fully potty trained and can handle all the wiping stuff on your own because it was not fun at all changing your diapers. I should mommy got the brunt of all the diapers because most of these diarrhea episodes occurred while I was at work!

Back to the gastro dr. appointment, we still kept the appointment as you have been struggling to eat solid foods. I guess I should rephrase that, you have been gagging/chocking drinking liquids and eating meat and other solid texture foods. It is really strange because you still love to eat baby food. In my book, I think you just have texture aversion right now. So the gastro dr. said he wanted to check your esophagus to make sure that structurally it was OK! If nothing showed up on the barium x-ray swallow then we would have to do an upper GI scope to check for other stuff.

Off to the barium x-ray swallow we go. Honestly, this was terrible I think more so for all of us including your mom and I. Basically, you were held down by 3 people not including your mom and myself. They wanted to make sure you didn’t scream and held still during the x-ray pictures while dumping barium down your mouth. Talk about pure torture for you and your parents! The icing on the cake was the nurse administering the barium had what appeared to be a cold/virus. She was wiping her noise a lot before giving you the barium. We were afraid that meant you were going to get your first cold. Thankfully, the x-rays came revealed that your esophagus structure was perfectly fine. There was a question on one of the images where it looked like you had some reflux from swallowing the barium. They suggested you might have some GERD type issue going on there. Are job is to try some toddler prilosec to see if that will help with your possible gagging/choking. Today, you seem to be doing a lot better with solids which is strange. But we still have reluctantly not fed you much meat or anything like that.

As for the nurse and her cold/virus, you picked up whatever she had a few days after the test. I can honestly say we are so blessed you have never been sick before this. It was honestly very tough to see you so upset battling this cold/virus. You had a temperature of close to 102 degrees thankfully it never got any higher. The odd thing is that you never developed any other symptoms just a mild fever. You did however develop a rash that scared us to death. We took you to the pediatrician and you checked out fine. That weekend you got extra space in our bed. Yes, you still sleep in our bed on a nightly basis but this time daddy got the couch for two nights. See look what I do for you!!!! All you wanted was mommy 24/7. I don’t blame you though as mommy has the power to fix anything!

Also, after your cold symptoms passed, you decided you wanted to go to the pediatrician again. So what did you do this time. When daddy was about to change your diaper on our bed you decided it would be fun to toss your entire body backwards and smack the side of your head on the bed frame. I will tell you it was a loud thud and scared both mommy and I. So the following day we took you to the dr again to have your head looked at. You checked out fine no need for concern. Thank god this is why we have skulls!!!

In other news, you continue to learn new things constantly. You seem to really like drinking strawberry lemonade from a straw. Another thing you love is Pizza Hut pizza. You can eat an entire piece! As for your activity I think you are born to dance. I don’t know what it is about dancing to music but it truly seems to be something you will love. Soon we will have you signed up for your first ever dance class. Guess who gets to participate with you its going to be me your daddy. It’s a good thing I like to dance with you all around the house.

Tonight, you decided to say your first full sentence! You just said it out of nowhere. I guess it was more of a song then a anything. But it was to Barney. I sang I love….. You said you. Then you continued with “you love me!” It was the cutest thing! When you read that when you are 13 or whenever I am sure you will be embarrassed.

As I have said many times in all these monthly updates, you continue to amaze us ever day. You have given both mommy and me more joy to our life than we could ever imagine. I cannot wait to see what new things you are doing in a few months.

We love you always Alayna!