Owen's ped died.

I found out this morning that he passed away on Easter. He was 72 years old. We have seen lots of doctors over numerous different states and he was, by far, the best around. We were so thrilled when we found him and, over the past 1 1/2 years, I have said over and over again how wonderful this man is and how I don't know what we'd do without him.

And now I don't know what we'll do without him.

We just saw him last week and he was fine.... I don't know what happened.

Dr Tom has been a pediatrician since the 60's, and you can tell by his "bedside manner". He doesn't care what the clock says- if you have something you want to discuss with him he would take as much time as you needed. And the best part is- he has his patients scheduled like this so nobody has to wait to see him- he's ready at your scheduled time, but he leaves plenty of time before his next scheduled patient. He's given me his home phone number and his cell number and told me to call anytime- day or night. And he meant it.

Dr. Tom retired in 2001. In 2007 he came out of retirement (just in time for Owen and I to move to Lexington and discover him).

Dr. Tom had a special interest in special needs, specifically autism. He has an 11 year old grandson with autism, whom he loved dearly. We were in Dr. Tom's office, on average, at least once a month for the last 1 1/2 years and not a visit went by that we didn't hear at least one story about this grandson. In 2007 he came out of retirement and was named Medical Director of the Medical Home for Coordinated Pediatrics (which treats both special needs children and children in the foster care system). This was Dr. Tom's pet project. He felt that Lexington had no place where a parent of a child with special needs could go and be pointed in the right direction for help. Help is just scattered all over the community and, if you're lucky, you run into it. Dr. Tom made it his mission over the last 2 years to make a place where a parent can go and say "I need x, y and z for my child with special needs" and they were pointed right to it.

When we moved here in 2007 Dr. Tom was just coming out of retirement and getting started with the Medical Home. When we moved here he was working at University of Kentucky hospital but we loved him so much we weren't giving him up so moved with him to the Medical Home once that opened. In the last 1 1/2 years Dr. Tom has done SO MUCH for us. He has listened to all my concerns. He's validated all of them and not made me feel like an idiot (like so many doctors do). He's pointed us in the right direction constantly. When the school was trying to jerk us around he offered to go to any meetings with us. When Owen's therapy place started jerking us around lately he's made phone calls to them to find out how to help. But most of all- he was a friend. He made sure to ask how *I* was doing every single time. He wasn't just focused on Owen, he wanted to make sure the whole family was doing okay.

Dr. Tom will be sorely missed. He was a great asset to the community, and especially to special needs kids and their parents.

We went to the visitation today and it was packed. A true testament to how well loved he was and how many lives he touched.

Happy Easter!

These first pictures were taken Saturday. We had an egg hunt for Owen in the back yard.
(You can see Owen's pumpkin plant he's growing on the table. He's also trying to grow watermelon but those seeds haven't sprouted yet)

In the background you can see our NEW GARDEN! It was a LOT of hard work but it looks awesome. Jason and I are both really happy with how it turned out. Right now I have lettuce, spinach, green onion and carrot seeds planted. When we get back from vacation I'll plant the rest of the stuff.

Some of the eggs had chocolate (chocolate eggs and hershey's kisses, plain chocolate is the only candy he eats) and some of them had coins.

All dressed up for church on Saturday evening.

Dying eggs on Saturday night.

And having a blast!

Finished products.

A little while later I ran to the store to get a few things and left Owen home with Jason. Jason ran upstairs to do something, leaving Owen downstairs watching a movie. I came home to find this...

He says he just wanted to see what was inside the egg. LOL! Can't be mad at him- he actually TOUCHED the egg! That's a huge improvement!

The next pictures are from Easter morning...

He got a ball, a watering can, a baseball and mitt, a couple books, a dvd, a handful of small chocolates and a big chocolate bunny. He doesn't do peeps or jelly beans or anything like that.

Enjoying his chocolate bunny after breakfast...

Owen drank....

CHOCOLATE MILK today!!!! How freaking exciting is that?!?! He only drinks water (95% of the time) with a rare cup of OJ and a random cup of hot chocolate. Tonight we were at the grocery store getting some stuff for dinner. We passed by the milk area and he stopped and mentioned the chocolate milk. He said something to the affect of "Oh, maybe I could try chocolate milk some day...". I asked if he wanted to get some and he said YES! He then went on to say how he could try it and maybe he would like it!

So we get home and I pour him a cup of chocolate milk. Without any hesitation AT ALL he tried it... and declared it "really yummy". WOO-HOO!!!! One giant step in the right direction :) :) :)

And one huge "TAKE THAT" to the feeding therapist who doesn't believe Owen is making any progress and believes he's a lost cause. That's *3* new foods in the last week alone (peanut butter and banana sandwich, peanut butter pretzel sandwich things and chocolate milk). HA!

Quick Owen update

Owen had a 5 year check-up this week (only 6 months late... lol). He needed one on file to start school in the fall.

Anyway.... he's up to 39 pounds (fully clothed)!!! Woo-hoo!!! He's also 43 inches tall. He's in the 21st percentile for weight and 25th percentile for height. Crazy to think he used to be off the charts when he was an infant. Now he's so tiny :( His ear tubes are still in (a year later... what a shock they made it that long!). The dr said one of them is just kinda there, not doing much and the other one is not in place at all but has made it's way down the canal a little bit. We assume they'll fall out on their own but for all purposes they are not actually doing anything right now.

We talked a little bit about all Owen's other doctors (the list has been growing and I'm trying to weed through which ones are really necessary). All of his dr's want to see him at least once a year. It's getting tiring keeping up with them though. So.... I think for now we are stopping the neurologist. I don't think there's much he can tell us. What the last neurologist thought were seizures we haven't seen any of in the last year so I'm not concerned about that. We might also dump the geneticist, at least for now. He isn't showing any more signs of NF1 so it's the same as it was last year at this time. We're dropping the ortho, since his legs and spine look fine (often with NF1 there's bowing of the legs or curvature of the spine). We are keeping the eye doctor, obviously, and will continue yearly visits to check for signs of NF1 and RP (the eye disease matt and his family have).

Owen also went to the dentist. He's been going every 3 months for the last 1 1/2 years. The reason for going every 3 months was to get him used to it and so the dentist could work at Owen's pace and Owen wouldn't forget between visits. This has been going well. We can now get the dentist to brush Owen's teeth with Owen's toothpaste (he'll only use 1 kind) and count the teeth (20 is the current count, with no loose ones). AND last week we actually got x-rays! We'd been working up to that for a little while, showing him the x-ray machine and explaining what'll happen. He did GREAT with it. A little bit of resistance, but not much at all. And, best of all, his teeth look wonderful! I guess that's what happens when your kid doesn't like candy (except chocolate, but nothing sticky or hard), doesn't drink juice (except OJ once or twice a month), doesn't drink pop, and loves brushing his teeth. LOL!