1/16 - Nick and Jamie, reunited and it feels so good

Its so nice to be back in Houston with Jamie. I’ll be here until Monday; thank goodness for MLK day. Jamie’s spent the past few days with her Aunt Betty while mom has been moving out and taking care of other business in McAllen. Also, Jamie got a nice surprise visit from her friend, Alice, from St. Michael’s. I’m pretty tired right now, so I’m going to make it short(er) and (almost as) sweet (as normal). Oh, and in other unimportant news, Jamie and I took part in a mini-Heath Ledger marathon. We watched Brokeback Mountain for the first time – it’s pretty gay, if you’re wondering – and now we’re watching the Dark Knight for the millionth time.

Jamie’s recent medical news hasn’t been as good as Heath Ledger’s career ended up… Her first issue arose two days ago. She was having a problem popping her ears, which she needs to do in order to dive in the hyperbaric chamber. If she can’t pop her ears, then she can’t release the pressure in her head… this is painful. So, her doctors made the decision to put tubes in her ears, like KC had when she was 6 or so. Now she doesn’t need to pop her ears when she dives. Despite this slight improvement, its still uncomfortable.

Then, there is the issue of Jamie eating, or not eating, as the case may be. She’s having a hard time keeping her food down. This is mainly an issue because we want her digestive system to start working food through it. She is getting sufficient caloric intake through her IV, but she can only stay on the IV for so long and needs to keep eating. The problem with eating is that she keeps barfing. We spoke with one of Dr. Lin’s associates and she made a few points about Jamie’s stomach. She said that her stomach is simply having a difficult time pushing food through normally. She said that this could be a result of (a) a traffic jam in her digestive tract or (b) a larger than normal stomach [ok, that isn’t what she said, but its how she described it]. Considering that Jamie’s had some good poops lately, Dr. Thai later said that its unlikely that she has a digestive traffic jam. Jamie had a stomach x-ray this evening to see if we can identify the problem. Despite how bad this may sound, the situation isn’t dire. Its not like we need to get this addressed immediately; it’s just our next hurdle, and its smaller than our earlier ones.

Hyperbaric went well today though. Jamie watched Law and Order twice. I feel pretty proud of her for making such a good choice. I hope she starts to like it because its constantly playing on TNT. I remember when I started watching the show… it was like a new episode every hour. Awesome.

Also, Mom is back tomorrow. Then its me and mom taking care of business, like we'll start doing on the Amazing Race! That's right, you heard it here first: Mom and I are going to be on the Amazing Race together... but first we need to apply... That's all I've got to say about that. Zzzzzzz....