la Cour Marker Rasmussen: December 2008

Friday, December 26, 2008

Growing girl

During Christmas we were lucky to get a visit from Marie, Thomas, Emilia (our new cousins name) and Cecilie (Marie's sister). She grows bigger and more beautiful for every day!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

It does look as though we did nothing else but to eat at Christmas. That is not true of course. We also sang and dances around the tree, but the pictures did not turn out well, so this is all you get ;-) However, Tue is relieved - once again - that the tree did not catch fire, despite the la Cour family!

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Merry Christmas!

These are our two Christmas goodies! As always it is quite a struggle to get a decent shot, but we finally made the two of them pose for a fraction of a second!

We have had a homebound December this year. Marie-Louise got chicken pox in the beginning of the month, and - a little to our surprise (as we had argued for a vaccine to Marie-Louise already half a year ago) - Sebastian therefore had to stay at home from kindergarten. For the time being a couple of the other kids on the ward are rather fragile, and chicken pox is not something they need. As it is extremely contagious - and even though the risk of Sebastian carrying it down to the other on the ward is extremely small - we decided to keep him at home until next year. Too bad for Sebastian who has missed out on his daily child-contact. However, as you might have guessed, we have tried to compensate the best we can!

Fortunately Tue is in between jobs (for the third time this year!!!), and one of us has been able to be at home with the chicken pox girl (it has not been too rough on her) and the other one has had the chance to go out with Sebastian to playgrounds, Tivoli and a good swim in grandmother Libbes pool. Sebastian seems to be ok with it, and has not asked any questions about why he is not in kindergarten.

In mid November we went to see the hemathologist. Bloodwork is still within normal ranges, however platelets in the lower ranges. We are very content with this, and continue to be amazed at how well he is doing, despite his poor prognosis. It is definately healing to look at Sebastians active and funny life - something which I admittedly had a hard time to imagine just a few years ago!

A few weeks ago we went to see the hand-surgeon. She was the one who took away his thumb on his left hand on day two of his life. The thumb was very tiny, without bone and hanging in a string and would never have been possible to 'repair'. Sebastians right hand thumb is not functioning very well as well. But it is more like a real thumb. However it is a little lose, very weak and he cannot use it for grabbing. The hand-surgeon has so far agreed with us that a hand-surgery would not be something we should put Sebastian through. Not least due to the fact that last time he went to surgery - on day two of his life for duodonal atresia - it seemed to have triggered the fall in the bloodcounts, that we saw while he tried to recover from the operation. However, the hand-surgeon has now changed her mind. Also because Sebastian is going to school in probably less than two years. She told us that right now Sebastian not only has to deal with a missing thumb on the left hand. He also practically misses one on the right hand. She has therefore suggested surgery, which will enable his thumb to get stronger and to be able to grab. We are of course a little scared but still convinced that this is the right thing for him. And as Sebastians counts have been stable for so long, we rest assured that he is strong now to go through surgery. We do not have the date yet, but sometime in Spring will be likely.

We are all looking forward to Christmas. Marie-Louise turned one year on the 12th of December (day 3 of her chicken pox!) and she is practicing very hard on her walking. She prefers to hold hands with us (both hands preferably!) and has not yet dared to try on her own. She is getting cuter for every day that goes along, and is communicating a lot now with sounds and gestures. It is going to be fun to have her with us around the tree! Sebastian has started to get exited about Christmas eve, and is trying hard to behave well in order for Santa to drop him as many gifts as possible!

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.