Josiah's Journey

Today has been Josiah's best day since he was discharged from the hospital last week.

He came home Friday afternoon. Rick took him for a follow up appointment Monday morning. The Dr. said it would take another full week for Josiah to bounce back.

It was reassuring to hear that. We had been wondering why we hadn't seen Josiah more perky after being discharged.

Saturday Josiah slept almost the entire day.
Sunday he did too.

Occasionally he would wake very briefly, walk to another part of the house, plop down and sleep some more.

The Dr. mentioned Monday that Josiah was looking a little dehydrated. We were concerned that we could potentially end up right back in the ER for another bag of IV fluids.

Thankfully, that didn't happen. Each day this week has been a little better.

Yesterday, Josiah was awake almost as much as he was asleep. He drank quite a bit. He ate a lot.

He used his iPad at breakfast to request scrambled eggs. I made him 2 and he gobbled them down.

For snack, he asked for scrambled eggs and ate 2 more.

At lunch, Josiah wanted scrambled eggs.

Sometimes when using his communication app, it takes Josiah a while to piece together his sentence.

He was very intentional in requesting eggs however and quickly breezed through it each time.

Sometimes Josiah will start with, I am Josiah. Then he'll wait. And wait.

Sometimes he'll say, I want something to eat or something to drink and then wait again.

If I gently hold his elbow and hover it over the iPad, he'll refocus his attention and complete his request.

Sometimes, he'll make a request and then refuse it.

But, with the scrambled eggs, Josiah was intentional. He couldn't navigate through the icons quickly enough to say, I want scrambled eggs, all 3 times.

Today, Josiah asked for scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Just to be sure, I scrolled through the other options available to him. I thought maybe it was necessary to refresh his memory.

He swiped the screen back to the eggs. I want to eat scrambled eggs, he said.

I was very grateful Rick had picked up an extra dozen eggs at the store last night. If the boy wanted another day of scrambled eggs, he would get them.

I was all prepared to make him more scrambled eggs for lunch.

And then, without any warning, Josiah scrolled through the icons. He passed up the picture of the scrambled eggs.

I thought it was a fluke. I was sure he would figure his mistake and correct it. It was no mistake.

I want to eat meatballs, he said. I just smiled.

It's great to be getting our little boy back.