Chewing The Fat

Some people, when dealing with tragedy, lose loads of weight. This hasn't happened to me. The opposite has happened to me. My already large appetite simply grew larger.

I reckon it's an evolutionary thing. When threatened with a crisis, my job is to eat more in order to keep the species going (that, and having loads of kids). So whether it's global warming, nuclear destruction or a zombie attack, you can all count on me to ensure that us humans are here to stay.

And you can also count on Alice. Because she's an eater too. As you can see.

There's been plenty going on here recently. Which is why we haven't updated in a while. Not just because we haven't had the time but also because there's quite a lot to say. And even that will have to wait for another post because... well, Shannon knows the ins and outs of it more than I do. But Shannon's in bed now, getting some well-deserved rest.

In a nutshell it's this: we're having a big planning meeting next Wednesday at the hospital. This will include consultants, surgeons, doctors, speech therapists, nurses and anyone else who'll be involved in Maggie's future care. We - they - need to get on top of everything and stop pissing about. One of the key things is to decide whether Maggie's going to have a gastrostomy. Or whether she'll continue being tube fed. And whether they'll tighten up her Lower Esophageal Sphincter valve. Or whether they'll decide her reflux can be eased with Gaviscon. Y'know, little things like that.

And this, hopefully - at the least - will result in her getting home soon. Because she really needs to be at home.

In other news, Alice is thriving, piling on the pounds and enjoying the snow. She's also in the early stages of laughing and gurgling (so by the time you get here Mary she should be in hysterics). She is, as they used to say, a real smasher.

But of course, Alice's smashingness is rather bittersweet. We were sitting with her on the sofa this evening, making her laugh and just enjoying being parents, when it hit us that we should have another little girl there, doing the same thing.

It's been three months now and it still gets us. The trick, we've discovered, is to simply bottle it all up and pretend that everything's okay. How else will we manage?

Click the pic to see the latest pics: