TSA letter from Doctor

Here's the letter that our doctor wrote for us to present to TSA if we have any problems:

"To whom it may concern,
xxx is a 16 month old child with feeding difficulties and poor weight gain.  Currently he is doing very well on rice milk.  Due to his feeding intolerance to other formulas, it is most important that he continues on the rice milk.  Please permit his family to bring rice milk on the flight".

Developmental Update: Auggie is walking at 16.5 months!!

After all that Auggie has been through we're very proud of him!!!!  He has been preparing for this for quite a while so his balance is already quite good and any falls tend to be gentle and slow. 

Medical Update: Echocardiogram shows improvement!!

Finally some really good news.  Auggie had an echocardiagram last week and it showed that the valve of concern has grown as he has grown.  This means that he probably won't need to have any heart procedures done.  Early on the doctor was monitoring him to see if he needed to have a balloon inserted to help expand the valve and therefore improve blood flow, luckily he took a conservative wait and see approach and it paid off!  Auggie still has mild pulmonary valvar stenosis as the flaps that open up between the two chambers are still a bit chunky and don't open up all he way, but this is something he can live perfectly well with.  As the doctor said, Auggie should be able to participate in all sports but he might not become an olympic athlete - that's fine with me :)

Preparing to fly to Europe

Traveling with children is complicated and stressful, but flying with a toddler who has food allergies opens up a whole new can of worms.  I have to bring ALL his food and figure out a way to keep his beverages either hot or cold during our journey.  I'm also going to ask his doctor for a TSA letter stating his medical condition so that I might be hassled less about the quantities of rice drink I have to bring on board!  On the plus side we don't think that Auggie has a life-threatening allergy to anything which must be a lot more stressful when flying, but on the other hand, consuming something he does not tolerate could make him very sick and dangerously dehydrated.  I'll post an update in a few weeks with all my latest "gear" and a sample of the TSA letter! 

Inexplicable vomitting

Auggie is happy and growing but has started gagging himself to the point of vomitting.  We're trying to figure out if it's behavioral or if there is something else going on.  He has been congested and a couple of times has gagged when eating chunkier food, but tonight he made himself gag at bedtime and threw up his dinner :(  Just when things were seemingly going better we hit another snag.....