WellnessOptions.ca

Before I begin with today's article, I want to thank everyone who visited Parker's web site yesterday, especially those that wrote a comment wishing Parker a Happy Birthday. A lot of very kind things were said about Parker, my wife and I. I know I have said it before but we do obtain a lot of strength from family and friends and yesterday's comments definitely gave us a plethora of strength. If you did not have a chance to write a comment I am sure that we will be doing this again and when the site has moved to the new domain and I have developed it myself I may open it up even more.

A couple of things have been plaguing Parker the past couple of days. First, Parker was constipated on Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday evening, Parker was on the floor crawling around and he stopped in his tracks and started crying for his Mama. My wife eventually consoled him but about 45 minutes later he did the same thing. We figured that his tummy was upset because of the constipation but when we brought him upstairs to change him he was in the midst of passing a very clay-like stool. It was quite large and must have been very painful for him. Mommy helped him remove it and almost immediately he was happier.

We were pretty sure that we knew why he was having such dense stools and was not going to the washroom as he normally does. On Friday, we were told by his dietician to put him down to two bottles of milk a day and give him water in a bottle or sippie cup in the middle of the day. As a result, Parker would not drink much of the water and in our opinion was not getting nearly enough fluids. For that reason, we have moved him back to three 9 ounce bottles of milk a day with the second bottle being diluted with water. Since we did that, Parker has been much happier.

Secondly, we have noticed that Parker is cutting two more teeth. The two adjacent to the bottom middle teeth. As a result, Parker has once again become Mr. Suckypants. We noticed this the last time that Parker cut teeth. I don't think my wife minds very much because whenever he is sad he cries and says "Mamma, mamma..." As a dad, that is a nice thing to hear at 11pm at night when you are trying to sleep. Last night, he woke at around 11pm for the first time in over a month crying for mommy. "I think Parker is calling you.", I said to my wife with a smile on my face. I know it will only be a couple of days before he finishes cutting his teeth and tough, strong Parker puts Mr. Suckypants back where he belongs.

As the title of today's article implies, Parker was the focus of an article on Severe Combined Immunodeficiency in the Bones issues of WellnessOptions magazine. Dr. Hilda Donhoffer wrote a wonderful article with the help of Lillian Chan (Magazine Editor) about Parker and his disease and we are extremely pleased and thankful that she is helping us get the word out about SCID. Each issue of the magazine has a focus and this month was about bones. If you are interested in reading the article check it out issue no. 29 at WellnessOptions.ca. I have read the magazine from cover to cover and I must say that it is an excellent magazine all around. It has many very informative articles written by people in the medical field. I would highly recommend checking it out. Thank you so much Dr. Donhoffer and Ms. Chan for a very well written article about ADA deficient SCID.