My Mom and Why I Love Her.

So, life hasn't been much of a cake-walk for my mom and I for some time. It started about five weeks after I was born in December of 2005, and by "it" I mean GERD (that's Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease for short). Although my pediatrician couldn't get things figured out until I was almost six months old and had to hospitalized, a ph probe finally diagnosed the reason for my lack of desire for food and slow weight gain. I was as happy as can be when no one was trying to force food into me, but man oh man, food, in any form, really, really upset me.

Surgery. That was to be the cure-all for this problem with the valve at the end of my esophagus and my body's inability to control the flow of acid in and out of my stomach. Surgery. Mom said no way. There was no way she could consent to having a makeshift valve created at the end of my esophagus, not if there was a chance I could get over my condition with a little more time. And with that came the medications: Prilosec (currently 9 mls twice a day), Zantac (currently 1.2 mls twice a day), and Reglan (currently .3 mls three times a day). The doses changed as I began to gain weight, and figuring out the medication was a bit tricky at first (I have my Prilosec mixed with Dark Karo Syrup to mask the nasty taste of the meds and add 40 calories to my diet), but ultimately, the real test came in figuring out how to get food in me and at an amount to meet my dietary necessities (calories and protein mainly, amongst all the other good stuff a little boy needs to stay strong and healthy).

My food. Mom tried everything you could think of to get me to eat with the help of my Feeding Specialist, Marjorie Palmer. There were all kinds of syringes, spoons, fancy bottles, and other food dispensing items. We tried all the formulas, various brands of the usual baby foods, and all the finger foods we could find at Target (they had the best selection of that type of stuff around here). I ate Cheerios for a little while, but quickly lost interest in those and started gagging and throwing them up when I was given them. There were brief periods when I'd munch down a Cheeto or two, but eventually they went the way of the Cheerio as well. There were arrowroot cookies, too, but they were hit and miss treats. Ultimately, Mom learned they only way to get me to eat was if it came from a bottle and that was when the gourmet came out in her.

She spent hours researching what liquid foods contained the essential vitamins and minerals I needed to grow healthy as well as the ones that were calorie rich. My bottles had to be thickened enough to stay in my tummy as much as possible, but not so thick I didn't want to do the work necessary to get the food out of the bottle. That also meant the nipple had to modified (cut) to make the hole big enough so the food would flow easily through the nipple, but then not so fast that I would gag on the amount of food I got when I sucked. Mom tried Pediasure for a couple weeks but when I refused to eat that, Mom found the base of my current diet, Nestle's Nutren Jr. My complete formula and current diet consists of three bottles made of 4.25 oz of the Nutren Jr., 1 oz of heavy whipping cream, 13 mls of rice cereal, 13 mls of oatmeal cereal, 13 mls of prunes (for constipation issues that can sometimes accompany thickened liquid diets), and 10 mls of a dietary supplement Mom later added to the mixture called Benecalorie. That makes for about 1200 calories a day, on a good day. There are still bad days, especially when my teeth started to grow in. Those days weren't so fun for anyone.

Once the food thing was figured out and fit in to my medicine schedule, there was figuring out how to keep me from being distracted during my feeding times. Three times a day, Mom had to find a way to keep everything around me from doing anything but letting me eat. The phone's ringers were turned off and left off, no one was allowed into the room where I was eating, one of an assortment of videos (ultimately one of the Baby Einstein videos) was put on the TV for me to watch while I ate, and there was my chair where the actual feeding took place. After I ate, I had to stay upright for 45 minutes to an hour. That meant someone was usually sitting right next to me, making sure I didn't sneak out of my chair as I quickly learned to do.

Sleeping also became an issue, my naps were short and although I slept through the night, I was up at the crack of dawn most of the time which was hard for both Mom and Dad who work nights. My bed was elevated at one end for the longest time, Room Darkening measures were taken to keep my room as dark as possible during times of rest, and 'white noise' in the form of a static radio station and a sound machine became a regular part of my sleeping habits.

So, as I'm sure you've gathered by now, there wasn't a whole lot of time left for my Mom to spend on herself, doing the simple things that make women feel womanly. Because she ran such a tight ship, if an opportunity was missed to get her hair done, or go to a movie with my Pa, or spend a few extra minutes painting her toenails, well, then those were just missed opportunities. She never complained about it. Her loyalty, her love, and her concern were for me alone, to keep me happy, healthy, and away from the surgeon's knife. My mom is the most unselfish person I know and loves me in a way that makes me run around the house on my tippy-toes.

I love the way she feels when I snuggle up against her as she carries me up the stairs to my room for a nap or bedtime, the way she smiles when I finish a bottle to the last drop, and the way she smells when she finishes getting ready for the day. She knows all the ways to make me laugh and smile, and is always the first person I go to when I need tears dried. She's my Mom and there's no other woman out there quite like her, just ask my Pa.

Here's lookin' at you , Mom. I love ya.

(And thanks, Pa, for helping me with some of the big words and numbers in this tribute to the special woman in our life.)

Choa for now. Hunter - 1 year 8 months 6 days 1 hour and some minutes, and still GERDalicious.