Happy 16th Birthday Catherine Therese!!

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Although you'll never read this my sweet Catherine, I love you. 16 years ago you changed our life forever. All of your siblings have done this in their own way but you have done so in a very special way. You have made me more empathetic, compassionate, and much more prayerful. Your smile lights up the world around you and we are all blessed by it.  It's not easy living with a saint. You remind me of my weakness and limited time on this earth. You challenge me to go deeper within myself and find what the Lord is trying to teach me...usually patience. You are made in His image and likeness but He uses you so that I can see my own beauty, goodness, and shortcomings.  You struggle mightily against me with every bath, diaper change, and wardrobe change. I struggle mightily with Him against all the changes He wills in my life. You depend on me and your mom for even the simplest of things. You teach me to depend on Him for everything and not rely on my on strength. You teach me that I
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Catherine Update

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So Catherine's eating has been about the same the past two weeks. Much better than it was before we started cutting calories, with a few days of improvement, but no big increase in oral intake. We don't expect her to increase oral intake when she's getting tube feedings anyway.

On our scale here at home, Catherine gained a little over a half pound while on this 600cal/day diet. When she went to the doctor's on Thursday, according to his scale she had lost a little over a half pound since 2 weeks ago. Which scale is right? I don't know, and the doctor of course thought his was right. So, he thought we should increase calories to 725/day. I talked with him about her progress and what we hope for her and he agreed to refer her to the weaning program in VA. Again, I am just very thankful that he is on the same wavelength with us, that she needs to be hungry and that maybe some outside help would be beneficial.

A highlight of the past week is that I have made some progress in getting her to eat pureed or creamy foods. The other night I was eating some chocolate pudding and I put some on my finger and she took some off my finger with her finger and tasted it. She did that several times and even licked some off a spoon that she held. Last night she did the same thing with a banana/mango puree. She seemed to really like it. I think she had about a teaspoon total. She was also really eating quite a bit of popcorn (broken into small pieces, no hull) the other night.

So, the plan is to apply to the program in VA. In the meantime we will keep food fun and relaxed, hoping to keep her interest and make some baby steps towards more intake by mouth. Jim and I may try to wean again around Easter time if she is continuing to show the interest she is right now. Who knows, she could decide she's ready by then.

Thanks again for all your prayers and encouragement! We appreciate them greatly!

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