Happy New Year to everyone! We hope and pray that 2008 is an amazing year for our family and friends. 2007 was quite a year for us. January we brought Carmen home from Guatemala. June we took a trip to Atlanta (yes, it was HOT!) and met up with my mom and two of my brothers for a mini-vacation. July we found out Carmen has a degenerative disease. August we sold our house and moved into a rental. Dave’s grandfather passed away in August. October Carmen was finally diagnosed. December we all spent a weekend at a resort in Virginia, complements of Dave’s work. Also in December Carmen spent 4 days in the hospital for feeding tube placement. We took 4 trips to upstate New York throughout the year for Easter, to visit Dave’s grandpa and again for his funeral, and for Christmas. As crazy as 2007 was, I have a feeling 2008 may be even crazier! We have another move coming up in July when the owners of our townhouse move back in. We are hoping in March to attend the NTSAD annual conference in Florida. I think it would be very helpful for us to meet other families affected by Tay Sachs and similar diseases.
Carmen had a hard morning. Her feeding tube got clogged (most likely from Prevacid) and I busted the tube leading from her feeding bag trying to flush it out. Carmen’s nurse, Hanna, inserted a new tube and poor Carmen cried and ended up with a bloody nose. The check where we had the old tube taped had a couple of raw spots so we switched to the other nostril and cheek. I was very thankful Hanna was there as last time Dave and I inserted the tube, we had problems getting it down. I sure hope Carmen can get her G-tube this month. I really, really don’t like inserting the NG tube and all the tape on her face. Our goal is to make Carmen comfortable and she clearly is uncomfortable the times we have inserted the tube.
