What can Parker do?

Good morning. I am at Parker's Nana's home this morning with Parker and his mom. We decided to give him a change of scenery for a couple of hours. So, I am using Nana's computer to write today's blog article.

We took our regular trip to the hospital yesterday for Parker's ADAGEN injection. Parker also had to give blood (hopefully for the last time before we leave for Italy). We went to the ambulatory clinic first so that Parker could give three vials of his blood. In the past, it was always quite difficult for the nurses to take blood from Parker. I recall one time at Sick Kid's, while we were still in isolation they sent a new nurse (from the ambulatory clinic) to take blood from Parker. Let's just say that everyone was crying when she was done, including the nurse. As Parker got older, his veins seem to get much better for giving blood. I also think it had a lot to do with the number of platelets that Parker had at the time. When we were on 8B, all the other mothers complained that their children had no platelets (meant for clotting - stopping bleeding). As for us, we always had more than 1000 in a sample of Parker's blood, a very large number of platelets. Yesterday's blood sample yielded a number of 450, a much more normal reading. As I was saying, Parker's veins are much more cooperative in regards to giving up blood. As a result, other than Parker yelling as he was being held down, it was not a difficult task.

The rest of Parker's numbers, although I do not have them with me were all similar to his readings from the previous month, except that it now seems that Parker is producing IgA and IgM for the first time. That was definitely nice to see. We are still waiting to find out about the other tests that are being done with him blood (TREC, flow cytometry, and t-cell function). We should have the results for those in the next week.

I was very excited this morning for a couple of reasons. One, I received some good news (not about Italy) that I am unable to share with people right now, and second and even more exciting Parker stood for an extended period of time (on three occasions) without support. Now, I know that most children generally walk around 12 months of age and Parker is a week past that, but I have a feeling that if someone did a study they would find that weight is also a factor in when a child starts to walk. With Parker being 26 pounds and close to the 90th percentile for his weight he has a little extra to support. As a result, I am very happy with Parker's physical accomplishments.

What does Parker do? He dances by shaking his head and bouncing on his knees, then spinning around in a circle. He points to the light when I say where is the light, he gets the circle when I ask him to grab the circle from his shapes, he drives around the main floor on his scooter, turning sharp corners or spinning it around to show off, he gets off the scooter when he arrives where he wants to be. He climbs up two sets of stairs separated by a landing to go to the top floor, he shakes his head "no" when he does not want something, he talks in a language that the universal language computer from Star Trek could not understand, he feeds himself cookies, he chases rolling objects after he throws them (similar to a cat), he can throw a ball further than his mom, and he laughs harder than a drunk college student at the Montreal comedy festival.

If you come back later today, I promise you that there will be some images of Parker for you to see.