Saturday, December 2, 2006 1:11 AM CST

Aidan has been doing so well recently that I haven't had much medical news to report! He had a kidney ultrasound and check-up that looked fine. He doesn't have to see the nephrologist again until next year. He just got a hand brace that helps him hold his left hand in a better pattern and hopefully use it more. Last week we had our first snow up here in the Sierras, and he has been out in it a lot. He even did sledding races down our driveway with his two brothers Kieron and Paddy. He just got to go to his aunt Kelly's house for Thanksgiving and had fun decorating sugar cookies and hanging around with his cousins and other relatives.

On Monday his little brother Paddy will turn four! And today is Aidan's half-birthday, come to think of it. Below is part of an email I wrote way back in January 2003, just after Paddy was born. Paddy had the same birth condition as Aidan -- neonatal hemochromatosis -- and was a sick little boy right after birth. They air-vac'd him to San Francisco and he was in the NICU for 3 weeks and came home on Christmas Eve.

I thought it would be interesting to compare, since we were having so many struggles back then. If you are visiting this page and have a child waiting for a transplant or just post-transplant, or with other severe medical difficulties, it might be difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Our transplant coordinator told us that we would eventually get to the easier times, and she was right. But it took quite a long time.

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from January 2003

An update on our little boys:
Patrick — at one month of age, he is fine to all appearances. We haven’t had any follow up labs since he left the ICN on Christmas Eve so I can’t categorically say “He is fine”. He is a great baby –we couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas present. He has enough older siblings that he is hardly ever put down, and he is just starting to smile at us!

Aidan — he had to have a biopsy the weekend between Christmas and New Years. We both were with him during the day of the procedure — we brought Clare, who was invaluable as a Mommy’s helper for Patrick since poor Aidan took 7 tries to get an IV started this time. Kevin stayed with him overnight at the hospital — the preliminary results of the biopsy showed no rejection but they haven’t received the final word back from SF. He is still pretty yellow. This is the first time he has been jaundiced since the transplant and that has been scary. But his bilirubin has stabilized and his other numbers are also stable though still high.

Poor Aidan has been coping pretty well with what has to be the worst sibling displacement in history. …his mom disappearing for 3 weeks, constant driving back and forth from Fresno to SF, then a whole set of medical procedures of his own. Plus the seizure meds he has been on have affected his personality a little.

He thinks Patrick is a big joke — every time Patrick sneezes Aidan literally falls over laughing. Other than that, I’m not sure if he really understands that Patrick is not just a rather realistic stuffed toy! As for me — physically, fine except for not losing the pregnancy weight, maybe because we have been living on pizza and hamburgers and holiday food??; and except for waking up every 2 hours on the dot to warm bottles and administer them. Sleep deprivation has taken on new shades of meaning. Plus it seems to take 2 hands to hold a baby and a bottle (Patrick needs to be on a low-iron diet) so that leaves me needing a third hand in order to type emails ;-)