Halloween and Medical Update

The Friday before Halloween we went to Boo at the Zoo. They decorate the zoo and have activates for kids set up at night. Nicholas enjoyed the lights. We borrowed a wagon and he just chilled in it while we pulled him around. We got so many complements on his Nemo costume. It will be a lot more fun in a few years when he can participate. They also put lights up at the zoo for Christmas so we will probably take him to that too. On Saturday I brought him to Publix to do some trick-or-treating and show off his cuteness. On Halloween we went trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. It was really disappointing. About 85% of the houses didn't have their lights on and weren't giving out candy. It was nothing like when we were kids. Next year we are going to have to figure out a better place to go.

Nicholas had a CT of his brain and an appointment with the neurosurgeon. The radiologist red flagged his CT because his ventricles looked a little enlarged. The neurosurgeon sent him to get a shunt o'gram (x-rays looking at the shunt tubing) and an ultrasound of his belly to look to see if it is draining alright. Everything looked fine and they compared the new CT to one from right after surgery. The ventricles are a little bigger but they get bigger with his regular growth so they are going to leave the shunts alone. He isn't acting like anything is wrong with them, which is good. They are going to do another CT in three months.

He also had an ultrasound to look at his gallstone. It is the same size as is was during the last ultrasound over the summer. He sees the GI doctor in the beginning of December so we don't know what they are going to do about it.

His speech therapist is going on maternity leave so we have been trying to get into the clinic that does AV therapy, which he needs for the cochlear implant. That has been a huge hassle. They changed the one time slot they have open on us about 5 times. We were finally able to get him in Wednesday mornings. We have to push OT back a little bit but we should be fine. He also started feeding therapy last week. The therapist said he has one of the worst cases of texture issues on his tongue that she has ever seen. She watched him play with his toys and noticed that ones that have texture cause him to make a face or cough once he gets them to a certain point on his tongue. We have never noticed that. He will put anything in his mouth beside food so we didn't think it was a texture problem. He is fine with smooth things. She said this is going to be a very long process and a lot of hard work to fix. We have to figure out why he has the texture issue and since he can't tell us that is going to be hard to figure out.