All is well

Dear Baby,

Mommy and big brother are recovering well from our cold. The good news is, even Ah Po is recovering well from her surgery. She's been moved back into her original room from the observation room. Now she only needs to share the room with another potential patient, instead of two, and there's a tv inside the room for her to watch her tv series finale tonight. I haven't gone up to the hospital yesterday or today because I need to make sure your big brother naps. He just won't sleep without me around. On the other hand, great grandma said that great grandpa is doing well in Guangzhou as well. He's more willing and able to take baby steps to walk and feed himself. They were having a very difficult time before in getting him to do anything. I'm glad to hear that things are getting better, both for him and everyone who takes care of him.

Your big brother sleep schedule is completely changed. He doesn't sleep until midnight or 1 a.m. every night, wakes up at around 9-9:30 a.m. He used to sleep from 9ish p.m. to 6 ish a.m. Still about 9 hours a night, plus 2 hours nap (within the recommended amount). He's having too much fun, meeting too many people, thus making him very hard to fall asleep at night. Besides, when we're home, we had dinner quite early, at around 6:30-7 p.m., but here, we don't have dinner until 8:30 p.m. or so. Thus the whole sleep routine is pushed back a few hours. But I am not too worried about his schedule when he gets back to the States. I am sure he won't be able to sleep well on the plane, and will be able to sleep well when he gets home.


Now that I spend more time with your brother, I noticed he really does have a huge obsession with cell phones, cameras, elevator buttons, escalators, and any type of doors. I am getting a little more concerned as I spend more time with him. He has a rough transition from one to another, especially if he spots an escalator or elevator. Usually, I'm able to 'reason' with him, but I wonder if this is really normal.

On the other hand, he is so smart in other areas. He's able to pick up any cell phone and get to the ringtone section. He picks up Ah Gung's cell phone, plays the music that he likes, and learns the song. He was singing "It's a big big world" just now, and also "We are the Champion". Actually, he sang himself to sleep just now. His skills in playing with different cameras and taking pictures have improved as well. And, he has a great memory. You show him once, and he'll be able to copy you.


Mommy brought your brother to meet up with some old high school friends for dinner earlier tonight. It was nice to see some old friends. Most of us are married, and also have kids. Definitely different than back in the days when I came back and we'll go drinking and karaoke. These days, mainly just dinner and maybe dessert later. I didn't take too many pictures, gotta ask Uncle Jimmy and Auntie Oli for the ones that they took.


I think my friends are still very weary in talking about you. It's possibly because they don't know how to approach the subject, or they don't want me to get too sad. I see your pictures everyday though, even your big brother, because I have your picture as the wallpaper of my Ipod Touch. Everytime we play with it, your face will be there. Still cute as a button. We will never forget you. Your big brother doesn't understand what's going on, but I know he will always remember you. Unfortunately, his memory of you seems to be those when you're at the hospital, and not when you're home. When he's older, I'll tell him all about you. You will forever be in our hearts.

Sleepy time for me. I'll tell you more about what we do tomorrow, ok?

Love you,
Mommy

Yummy Delicious Portuguese Food!

Hello Baby,

How's the warm weather? I wonder if you're as sweaty as your big brother and Mommy, or like Daddy who can wear layers of clothes and not sweat at all. I remember when you're home, Mommy always worried you were gonna be too warm, because everybody tried to give you so many layers of thick clothes.


So let me tell you what we did today. We basically stayed home most of the time, but we did go out for dinner. We went to this awesome Portuguese restaurant called A Lorcha. It gotta be one of the best, if not the best, Portuguese restaurants in town. Look at all the yummy food!

We first started with a Seafood Soup (Left) and my favorite Cabbage and Potato Soup (Right).
As for entrees, we have:

Lamb Chops with Fries - You bet your brother ate most of the fries. He even yelled at his Uncle Carlos when he tried to take some fries and using a fork. I guess your brother thinks that Fries is a finger food and should not be eaten with utensils?

Next up is the Clams in Garlic and Olive Oil. The soup base was delicious. I expected it to be a little greasy because of the olive oil, but it's not. Very clear and sweet (clam sweetness).

Then we have the famous Seafood Rice. It's Deeeeelicous!! The best Seafood Rice I've ever had. When we left the restaurant, we noticed 8 out of 10 tables ordered this rice. Yum Yum YUM!

This is the Bloody Chicken. Usually we eat Bloody Duck, but they only have the chicken version. It doesn't look very appetizing, but it's very delicious. It's sour though, so I guess not that many people like it. But we do!

Can't have Portuguese food without some bacalhau (salted cod fish). We ordered the Baked Bacalhau with Mashed Potato. It was surprisingly good, as this is our first time trying this version of bacalhau. Your Auntie Mena ate most of it coz she loved it so much!

Last but not the least, DESSERTS!!! When asked what he liked, your brother immediately pointed to the chocolate mousse. But then while we're sharing, we noticed that there's alcohol in it, so we quickly switched it out and have your brother eat the Mango Pudding instead. Just as delicious.

Your brother didn't eat much rice, but he sure did eat two big piggy buns. After fries, he wanted to dip his bread into the ketchup. He LOVES ketchup. Ah Po tried to do the same, but she said it didn't taste good.

This was a nice dinner. Good food with good company. Luckily, we made reservations (limited to 1.5 hrs) because when we left, we saw a lot of people waiting in line. This is also a good dinner because Ah Po was able to eat most of the food. Her teeth are not great and her taste buds have changed recently. She wasn't able to eat a lot of food, but she enjoyed the meal. That's the most important thing. She wanted to know how much it is, just for the sake of knowing. But I told her, as long as you can eat and love the food, she doesn't need to know. I wish you and Daddy could enjoy this meal as well. Last time when Mommy took Daddy to another Portuguese restaurant, he really liked the food. I bet he would love this restaurant as well. Maybe next time we come back, we can come again. I am definitely going to have another Portuguese meal before I go back. Hard to have a good decent Portuguese restaurant in the Bay Area.

The evening ends with some more dessert. Your Uncle Carlos won a little money playing Mahjong last night, so he treated us to some Haagen Daz.

We got the Green Tea and Tiramisu flavors. They said the Tiramisu is a little too sweet for their taste. I told them, don't eat and I'll eat them all! HA!

Of course, your brother enjoyed the ice-cream as well. He didn't eat much as it was late. I didn't want him to stay awake for the rest of the night. He already had dessert earlier. Luckily, he fell asleep pretty fast.

That wraps up our day. Today, Mommy will go to the travel agency to purchase the packages for our Hong Kong Disneyland Trip this weekend. Mommy, big brother and Uncle Carlos will go to Hong Kong Thursday and hit Ocean Park first. Then we will meet up with everyone at Disneyland on Saturday.

I'll tell you all about the trip later. Many have also uploaded all of our pictures at our Gallery.


Love you,
Mommy

Logan is fighting and we need happy thoughts.

I am blogging from home now because I caught Aidan's cold. I went down to see Logan for a few hours but I didn't want to get him sick. He got a low-grade fever last night and I worried it's me passing on my germs to him. So I figured he's in good hands and I should rest as well, since it's going to be a long fight.

So yesterday afternoon, the Chief of Pediatrics came to talk to me. I wonder why she's the one talking to me, probably because I've expressed that I wanted Logan to get transferred. She said she would be around next week as the Director of Pedi is up in Sacramento due to a staff shortage. Anyway, she said she has talked to the Geneticist and he said it's unlikely that Logan has Mitochondrial Disease, but he's not ruling that out completely. He's the one that has seen Logan when he was in the ICN in San Francisco when Genetics was consulted, and he remembered Logan. He gave the PICU a list of other tests that should also be run, in addition to the Mitochondrial Disease one. It might be something else, it might not. For now, we won't know until we get all those tests done, and even if we get those tests done, we might not know. The Chief reassured me that the Genetics community is small and the Santa Clara Geneticist has also consulted with the one in the San Jose/San Theresa Kaiser. I guess she wanted me to know they are doing everything they can, so that I won't transfer Logan to Lucile Packard. She said the experts at the lab are really good in making sure all the tests are done and might add on tests that should be done but not checked off. So we'll see.

Logan has been doing well with his breathing. When I got to the hospital this morning, his respiration rate set for the ventilator was down to 4. They actually stopped the ventilator for an hour, decreased the sedation medication to assess how Logan breathes on his own. He did fine and the blood gas confirmed that he was doing good. However, when the nurse was drawing blood out, he got mad and stopped breathing for a while. The backup ventilator kicked right back in to support him. Aiya aiya... he just can't keep on doing that! He has really shallow breaths and I can see that from the monitor of the ventilator. They are going to wean him off the ventilator two more times today for an hour, to see how he's doing. They are repeating the urnine test. Also the culture from the mucous a few days ago came back negative. They will stop his IV antibiotics now. The doctor said he might not even had a UTI, but the urine sample might just be left out and bacteria grew. However, because the x-ray showed that he has a dilated kidney, and he can't do the VCUG because he's ventilated, the Urologist recommended giving him small doses of antibiotics orally (through his ng tube) for a few days in case there is a problem.

The audiologist completed part of the hearing test yesterday and will finish up this afternoon. Then we will see if he has any hearing problem. Because the midbrain controls vision and hearing, and movements, I am worried he will be blind and deaf/mute plus unable to walk. I have requested to have the Opthamalogist do a vision test on Logan once he's not sedated anymore.

For now, we're trying not to think about the negative. It will be weeks before we know the results of the blood tests and I don't want to go crazy. We'll just keep cheering Logan on to breathe so that he can be off the ventilator, and I can hold him and feed him again. I know life will not be the same when he gets discharged this time. His childhood and adulthood will be difficult, but we'll be there to support him. I hope Aidan will grow up to be a really great and strong big brother to Logan. For now, Happy thoughts!

Also, I would like to thank Peggy and Alex and all the friends at Yahoo for the Dinner Drive that Hank told me about. Thank you for helping us with dinner. It's been difficult cooking dinner since we are getting home late and are so exhausted. By the time we cook, it's already bedtime for Aidan. I would also like to thank everyone's well wishes and prayers. We're blessed to have loving and caring friends.