Viral Post Update

We still can’t believe this. This one little picture with such a simple saying really took off. And we have no idea how it happened. It’s just crazy.

Stacy originally posted it on James’ Facebook page on September 6th. As of October 28th, not even two months after she posted it, it has reached 12 million people. 12 million. Not 12 thousand…12 million. I can’t even wrap my head around that large of a number.

Thank you to everyone who has left positive comments, shared the picture, and showed James some love. And to those people who left negative comments, or turned the picture into a meme, I hope karma finds you.

Spinal Fusion Follow Up

A few weeks ago, James had his 5 month follow up with the spinal surgeon. It’s hard to believe it’s been five months already! Doc said everything looks fine.

James has had one issue that we’ve been dealing with since the spinal fusion surgery. It’s not even a result of the spinal fusion, but the surgery just exacerbated it. James’ tailbone has always stuck out a bit, almost to the point where we wondered if it would ever break through the skin. It never did…until the spinal fusion.

We think that with the straighter (and longer) spine, the tailbone started working its way through the skin. We’ve talked to a couple of doctors about options to address it and decided to go with the less invasive option first. We took James to a plastic surgeon who cauterized the wound around the tailbone.

If that doesn’t work and the tailbone continues to push through the skin, James will have to undergo another surgery where they will go in and shave down the tailbone. Fingers crossed it doesn’t come to that. We were told that there would be about a two-week recovery after the surgery. Yeah, recovery from the spinal fusion was supposed to be one to two weeks, and he was in the hospital for a month. I know. I know. We need to do what’s best for James. Hopefully he won’t need the surgery. Only time will tell.

Family Pictures

We had our annual family pictures done in early October. I won’t post all of them here, but here is a small sample of our favorites.

Stacy chose three of her favorite pictures and ordered metal pictures of them through Thirty-One. Only one of the three has arrived so far, but this is what it looks like:

Stacy just so happens to be having an online Thirty-One party so if your interested in having some of your special pictures printed on metal, there is a link to party in the Epilepsy Awareness Month section below.

Epilepsy Awareness Month

November is Epilepsy Awareness Month. Like she has done in years past, Stacy will be posting daily epilepsy facts on James’ Facebook page. I usually take those daily facts and make two blog posts out of them, one in the middle of the month with facts from days 1 through 15, and a second post at the end of the month or early December with the facts from days 16 through 30. I plan on doing the same thing this year.

Stacy is also having her annual Thirty-One fundraiser where she will be donating 20% of sales to the Epilepsy Foundation Greater Chicago. If you are interested in purchasing a new bag or other item, check out her online party here. If you don’t want to buy anything, please consider making a donation to the Epilepsy Foundation Greater Chicago.

World Stroke Day

October 29th was World Stroke Day. We’ll always wonder what James would be like if he hadn’t had that stroke in utero. Would he be ‘normal’ or would he still have some of the same medial issues? I guess we’ll never know.

School Picture

I’ll finish this post with James’ 5th grade picture: