Thursday, June 19, 2003
Hello everyone!

Nick has been doing so good lately as you can see he has been gaining weight really fast now. We are so excited because the bigger he gets the smaller and smaller the damage to his lungs are as a percentage of his total lung size.

We still are not making any progress on his feedings. He now just holds his mouth open and drools when we try and feed him. He does not make any effort to eat. I am not overly worried about this, because we can feed him through his G-Button right now and he is gaining good weight and nutrition that way.

Nick has been off the ventilator for more than a month now and is still doing great. We are able to start getting him out a bit more. He went us to go swim at Terah's brother's house. He didn't like the cold water. He started crying the moment we dipped him into it. After that visit he went to see his gramma (Terah's mother)

This coming week we have two really big doctor visits. On wednesday we have a swallow study where we will try and find out how well he is swallowing and if any food or saliva gets into his lungs. The resuls of this visit could have an impact on the friday's more important visit with the ENT doctor. Friday we are meeting with the doctor that will be removing Nick's trach. We don't know when we will be getting the trach out, or if. But please pray that it will be soon maybe even that Friday night. With his trach gone Nick will finally be able to talk and cry like a real baby. Both Terah and I long for that. When he gets rid of the trach we get rid of the ventilator too. He has not been using it, but it sits there in his room.

Thank you all for your continued prayers and support, it has meant so much to us.

Love,
Alex, Terah, and Nicholas