take a deep breath -- hold it -- now relax

OK -- I've taken a deep breath -- I've held it for the past two months waiting for Tyler to get better -- and now I can begin to relax.

I can honestly say that I feel like Tyler has made it over the hurdle placed in front of him and he is truly getting better and better with each day that passes.

Yesterday was his first day to realize that he DOESN'T want to stay in bed any longer than is required for sleeping.

He suddenly sat up all by himself, tried to climb out of bed and was insisting on getting into the hallway to play with his favorite toys.

It took a bit of coaxing to convince him that he still needed a bit of help.

By the end of the day he is back to crawling (almost) by himself, climbing (almost) into bed by himself and watching baseball on the couch with dad. He even took the last little sip of beer from dad's bottle. He didn't like it but it made both of them laugh.

Hmmm. The Diamondbacks won last night. Maybe they need Tyler to watch more of their games to send them some luck.

We've decreased the amount of oxygen that Tyler has needed to keep his O2 saturation up and he's sleeping much less. I think this last round of antibiotics is just what he needed to fight what he's been fighting.

It's nice to have him home. It's even nicer when he's being naughty, getting into trouble and telling me to 'get out' of his room.

a little bump in the road

Well -- Tyler has been making small improvements since coming home from the hospital last Friday.

However, this morning he awoke with a low-grade fever and kept telling me he was hot while holding on to his head.

Two hours later -- sure enough he began to have a foul-smelling discharge from his trach with thick secretions being coughed up.

I called the doctor right away who, in turn, called in an antibiotic for Tyler to get started on right away.

Hopefully we caught this early enough that he won't have to go back in the hospital.

Keep your fingers crossed.

The photo above was taken last October as Craig and Tyler were cleaning out the inside of a pumpkin. You can see that Tyler found this to be very amusing.

home watching baseball

Well -- Tyler is home and doing well.

He has a ways to go before he can get his strength and stamina back. He's currently sitting up in the office chair three or four times a day for about 30 minutes each time.

That doesn't sound like much progress but remember -- he's been lying in a hospital bed for over six weeks now and his strength is low.

Craig moved a T.V. set into Tylers room so they can watch baseball while recuperating from the asthma ordeal.

You can see that Tyler has lost a little bit of weight but he's happy being home with dad.

I'm happy that he's happy.