Week 200: A peach

On Wednesday of this week, I slipped out of Madison for a 72 hour trip to Boston to revisit my pre-kid, pre-Madison life and some of my oldest and dearest friends. Life here is all-consuming, and I was surprised how easy it was to shed it for those few days and become, however briefly, my younger care-free self again. I can't thank Papa Bear enough for the opportunity to go. 72 hours isn't a lot of time for catching up with a lifetime's worth of friends, but it's enough to give a little oxygen to all those flickering flames and keep them burning until the next visit.

Meanwhile, back in real life, Lemon continues to cough. Just a little, and not at night. So, we still have no idea what's going on. Everyone else seems to be more or less over the summer cold that kicked off this round of everyone's favorite CF game, "Cold, allergies, or infection?" So, "cold" is seeming less likely, which leaves us with "allergies" or "infection." I'm not especially eager to leap into another round of Cayston, especially since if we start now, we will be doing Cayston while we're away on our big family summer vacation. Of course, if that's what it takes we'll do it, but I would like to be a little more confident that we aren't fighting allergies with antibiotics before we start. We have a clinic visit coming up on Wednesday (along with our first-ever pulmonary function tests!), so I'll see what our nurse practitioner thinks at that point.

Today, Lemon had his first day of summer camp. I'm glad to report that, in spite of the less-than-impressive phone conversation that I had with one of the camp staff last week, everything seems to have gone fine. I made up a printed sheet with all of Lemon's key medical instructions on it, gave a copy to his main teacher, and put extras in plastic bags in his lunch box and backpack. Lemon handled being dropped off at a new place with strangers very well--he was a little teary when I left, but report is that he quickly pulled himself together and had a great day. His teacher said that he was "a peach," and also noted (without my having said a word on the subject) that "he doesn't eat much." At least the camp fulfilled its main goal, which is that he was EXHAUSTED when he got home and promptly collapsed and slept for 2.5 hours. Victory!

Speaking of eating, tomorrow Lemon has the first of his weekly feeding therapy sessions. When we were setting this up, I had hoped to capitalize on what then seemed to be a bit of a trend towards increased willingness to eat. Of course, now that we're ready to start, the pendulum has swung firmly back in the other direction and we are once again in the land of approximately zero oral intake. Still, I'm hopeful that we'll make some progress. I've already heard Lemon imitating some of the language that he heard during his feeding evaluation, so intellectually he seems to be game. With any luck, his therapist will be able to convert some of that intellectual energy into practical results!

Today marked the official beginning of my next round of marathon training. I went out for my evening run as the last few summer rain showers were moving through, and they left some serious beauty in their wake--seems like an auspicious start!