That's What War Will Do To You!

Short note that Bryson is doing so great with his new allergy meds. He hasn't throw up in a few days. That is ASTOUNDING, seriously, this kid throws up all day! The laundry has been cut in half! Here the entire time I thought it was the tube but I guess now it was really the allergies. Who knew! Either way I am so glad! If he isn't throwing up over half of his feedings he will weigh 50 pounds soon! Honestly I think he gained his weight more from length than anything. He is so much taller! I can't believe we have been home for almost 5 months now. It is weird because I STILL think about the hospital. When I first came home I didn't think about it too much but the farther out we get the more I think about it and when I do think about it I get a rising feeling of terror. I wille explain it like this...Bryson is two different people. There was Bryson who was sick and in the hospital and whom I didn't know very well but still loved the same. I am fairly comfortable with knowing "that Bryson" was at the hospital. And then there is the "other Bryson"...the one who is a fat, thriving baby full of spunk and laughter. The "other Bryson" was never at the hospital and I think what bothers me is that sometimes, for some reason, I picture the "well Bryson" in the same situation the "sick Bryson" was in...at the hospital, hooked up to life support with tubes coming out of his body. When I do that it just creates pure fear and panic. I thought that coming home and being with Bryson would just be "IT", I would never look back but sometimes when I think about it, I think that this is kind of like what people refer to as post-traumatic stress syndrome. I know it sounds silly but you would think at this stage in the game I would have let it all go but it is just harder than I imagined it would be. I think Bryson has even carried things over, not all bad things. He has these strange coping mechanisms that I have never seen in other babies. For example, at night I have to "torture" him with putting new tape on his ng tube on his face, using eye drops and nose sprays and such. Well he gets very angry and fights me and screams like mad...but the VERY SECOND I finish, the VERY SECOND, he stops crying. You know how most babies (or most I have come in contact with) have some residual crying after the fact, a few sniffles and such but he turns it off right away. I wonder if that is because of what he went through. He is very into "touching" things. He looks things over and checks them out by lightly rubbing them with his fingers, in a strange way...very slowly..and I mean EVERYTHING. Whenever I wear a shirt with any print he reaches out and slowly rubs his hands over the lettering to see how it feels. At the doctor's office there are elephants painted on the wall. He wanted nothing more than to touch that wall. If you lay him on a blanket he reaches back and strokes the blanket. I wonder if that is something from the hospital. I know that he doesn't "remember" what happened to him but I worry that somewhere deep in his mind he does remember it. I wish I could forget it. It literally comes into my mind EVERY SINGLE DAY, without fail. Shouldn't it be gone now?? I think if we could get rid of the ng tube it would make me feel better. It is a constant reminder that he was sick and isn't completely 100 percent. Please pray that we get rid of that as soon as possible!