Every Day's an Adventure!

Rowan's health issues mean that his days are pretty well scheduled, he spends a lot of time "attached" to things, and he doesn't get to go out very much or do many things. See, his gi system doesn't work well so he gets fed by gtube pretty much round the clock. Then his pancreas doesn't function fully so he doesn't make the enzymes needed to break food down anyway, so he gets fed by the iv line in his chest 12 hours a night too. He also sleeps with a pulse oximeter attached to his toe to monitor his heart and oxygen sats, and with nasal canula oxygen on his face. Rowan also has a severe protein allergy and is allergic to most all foods. His oral diet consists of potatoes, water and sugar candy, sometimes cucumber, but thats about it. Rowan's immune system is compromised too which means that we have to watch his white blood cell count and anc very closely (weekly labs) and when he is neutrapenic, we keep him home away from whatever germs we can avoid. He doesn't go to preschool or daycare, never plays at McDonald's, doesn't go to friends houses to play, etc. He mostly stays at home with us and his home nurse, "attached" to anywhere from 1 to 4 machines at a time. His best friends are nurses and the ones he makes at the infusion clinic. Not very adventurous you might think, but Rowan does.......

See, I started something called "Adventure Day Saturday" with Rowan recently, because he has been stuck at home for over a month straight now and he watches Zoe and Ian leave for school, karate, and other activities all the time. I felt bad about him not getting to do anything outside of our house for so long. So, after we take Zoe to her theater troupe practice on Saturday's, Rowan and I drive around until we find a place to take a walk, or go on an "adventure". As long as it is someplace new and there aren't a lot of people around, it's a perfect adventure to us. We've walked around a couple parks, down by the river in our neighborhood, etc. Well, this past Saturday we didn't get to do our "Saturday Adventure Day" and I told Rowan I was sorry we missed it. He thought for a minute and looked at me and said,

"Mom, isn't ebry day an adventure anyway? Cause we don't eben know if we'll be here tomorrow or what God will let us do the next day, right?"

God bless this kid! He's right, we should live each day like it's an adventure and like there might not be a tomorrow. Thanks for reminding me of that Rowan:-)