stand still.

Braden went to the doctor again this morning and things are not looking good for his eye. They took more cultures to see if it will grow anything so that MAYBE we can figure out what's even going on. Having the best cornea specialists around unable to stop his infection is so scary. I just can NOT believe it came back from one day of not doing drops and cutting back his anti viral pills.

There was even more new infiltration today. He wakes up hurting in the morning with a swollen eyelid...but other than telling us that it hurts he goes on with his daily routine of drops, run, breakfast, pill, school, etc.

The doctors are fearful that he is going to become immune to the antibiotics...what then?

For now the course of action is to go back daily, pray the cultures will grow something and give us answers this time, and keep him on the drops for a month this go round. I just can't get over that it was almost completely cleared up and is back with a vengeance!

This was my fear....come true.

The other night Braden hit his breaking point. I'm not going into details on the blog but something totally unrelated to his eye happened and it was clear that he was just D.O.N.E. with all of this. He's tired all the time now and hurts (and asks for Ibuprofen throughout the day). He doesn't constantly complain that it hurts...we can just tell and if we ask he says, "yes." He's not a complainer. Which is almost harder for me to know he's hurting SO badly and suffering in silence. I rocked and rocked him the other night in our glider and wished we could go back to when nothing was wrong with him.

So far his vision hasn't been affected by this new infiltration but he does wake up in the morning not being able to see, until he has his drops.

I don't know what we would do if he was in school because as it stands now we get everything done but it is MUCH harder with the trips to Duke and 2+ hour appointments. We're doing some night/weekend school because with everything else there just isn't enough hours in the day. Last night he was too exhausted so he's got a few things to make up. He's so far ahead anyway that I KNOW it won't matter but I'm way too Type A to not do it all:) He and Cailey do their 'teaching' time together since they are doing all the same work so she also has to do the night/weekend thing but is handling it well.

Today I let Braden go on a play date because he needed it....and I think he could use a lot of them. He's gotten a few letters/cards in the mail and a Lego set and was just thrilled that people cared that much for him. Oh, my boy. How I want this to all be over for you.

Back again tomorrow at 9.

Update:

I had a few people ask for our address so they could send something for Braden so here it is..boy will he be surprised!

Braden Barbour
2369 Declaration Dr
Raleigh, NC 27615

Since we are doing a study on the states this year I think it'll be fun to see how many different states he'll get letters from! So far he's gotten them from MD and several from NC.