Not to get too self-congratulatory, but I believe this may be our family's first trip where we didn't forget something important. I always feel like we couldn't have forgotten anything important, because it always looks like we're packed for intergalactic travel when we leave town even for a night. Inevitably, though, something small gets left behind. This time, though, I actually got everything. You might reasonably suggest that I should develop a packing list of some kind that lists all the CF-related stuff that we need to bring on every trip. You would be correct that this would be a good idea. And I fully intend to do it, right after I set up my calendar reminders about changing out the filter on the compressor for the vest.
Speaking of changing out that filter, holy smokes. Um, yeah, I guess it really did need to be changed (top = new, bottom = old). Don't worry, though. All that sketchy-looking white stuff that's on the filter? It's almost all pure salt from the 7% saline we nebulize twice a day. Honestly I'm amazed the thing still runs given how much salt must be inside it.
Anyhow, in addition to having everything we needed with us, Thanksgiving was downright awesome. We went to Minneapolis and stayed at a nice Airbnb. We spent the bulk of the weekend with some of my oldest and dearest friends, who now live out in CA but were in Minnesota to see their relatives. It reminded me so much of the Thanksgivings of my childhood--a pack of children running wild, tons of food, laughter, conversation, tryptophan comas. Just fantastic, by far the best Thanksgiving we've had since we moved to Wisconsin.
We also took advantage of our time in Minneapolis to do other fun things, such as visit the science museum, the aquarium, and one of Lemon's oldest friends (saying this cracks me up). His little buddy moved to Minneapolis over the summer, but they picked up right where they left off at the end of 4K, disappearing into the attic playroom for several hours. Lemon was very gleeful about the fact that we didn't know what they were doing while they were up there. Evidence strongly suggests that they were decorating old shoe boxes with glitter glue and markers, but I couldn't say for certain.
The only little dark cloud in the sky at the moment is weight gain, or rather the lack thereof. Despite having been healthy for a month, Lemon has not gained back even an ounce of the weight that he lost in September and October. I went back up to 3 cartons of formula a night, along with my trusty DuoCal, to see if that would help. No luck so far, and now I'm burning through my stash of formula because our order was changed to 2.5 cartons per day, so to do 3 I have to use up what I had saved from the times he was sick. We have a clinic visit coming up in a couple of weeks so if we haven't gotten anywhere by then I think I will have to ask the dietitian to change our order again. Lemon is still in around the 60th percentile for BMI, so definitely not in any serious trouble, but he does keep getting taller. And when you get taller without gaining any weight, well. We've played this game before. I think the great lesson from this fall is that fall is not a good time to back off on tube feeds. Previous seasons that we have lived through seem to suggest that spring, summer, and winter are also not good times to back off on tube feeds. I'm beginning to detect a pattern, I think...
