Our Next "Vacation"

I thought our only vacation this summer would be our one-day beach trip. But it turns out we'll be taking another one to . . . Cincinnati. OK, so it's not really a vacation. We need to take Tabitha to the Colorectal Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. It's the only place in the world that does what they do. We want to have her checked out just to make sure everything was done well and nothing was overlooked in her surgeries in China. And we also need to participate in their bowel management program. Tabitha's still in diapers and having lots of constipation/diarrhea issues, which is extremely unpleasant for all of us. So the goal of their program is first, to establish whether or not she should have bowel control (many people born with her birth defects do not), and then to figure out what to do about it. If tests show that she should have bowel control, then it can be managed with diet and laxatives, and they'll teach us how to do that. If not, then we'll have to do daily enemas. I am certainly hoping we don't have to do that, and yet even that would be better than what we deal with now!

Right now the Colorectal Center staff is working with our insurance company to get this approved. Please pray that they approve it, and soon. They can't schedule us for sure until that is worked out, but we're tentatively going there in the end of August. We'll be there for almost 2 weeks (outpatient with daily x-rays), so we do plan to make it into somewhat of a vacation. We'll visit the Creation Museum and some friends and maybe a couple other things too. And hopefully we'll come back with a new-and-improved digestive system for Tabitha! =)