9 months old

Tylor is 9 months old. 

And just as cute as ever. 

His personality is really starting to shine through.  He's very curious and wants to figure everything out (which also means get into everything). 

He's finally down to only 1 wake up each night with a feed and then right back to sleep.  He didn't really know what to think not having Jaydon around for 10 days, the house got really quite and boring for him but he did enjoy the extra attention and got used to tagging along with me on all the errands.  He thoroughly enjoys car rides because he knows that it means fun new things at the end. 

He's also become such a good sitter that when Jaydon got home we decided it was time to try out the double bath approach. 

If the boys are in the right mood they love it

(well actually Tylor loves ANYTHING that has to do with a bath and since he just adores his brother, having Jaydon in the tub is all the better). 

Jaydon also enjoyed being back at nursery with all his friends.  Time to try to settle back into a little bit of normalcy now.

Boys in Houston

While in Houston the boys did there best to make the best of it. 

Jaydon got to go see his long lost buddy Ella who moved out of Doha about a year and half ago. 

Jaydon and Ella were born 6 days apart and they shared their first birthday together. 

It was great to get the two of them together.  They played wonderfully and were just tooo cute.  Can't help but think this is a precursor to prom some day ;) 

The boys also spent a lot of time in the hotel room either because of jet lag (i.e. wide awake at 3am) or waiting in between appointments. 

Steve decided Jaydon needed a train set, they had so much fun with it they went back to the store and bought them out.  Which meant they were able to build a track all the way around their room. 

When they came home it took an entire half of a suitcase to get all the train and tracks packed. 

This is a picture of Jaydon just before waking up from the local anesthesia he was given for the biopsy. 

One of the benefits of having to stay a few extra days was that they were able to join Ella for her big 3 birthday (luckily for Jaydon she had it a few weeks late). 

Jaydon got to play with all kinds of Doha alums.  The had fun in the bouncy castle and playing other fun games. 

They ate yummy cupcakes before heading off to the airport - just what a kid needs before being stuck in a plane for the next 16 hours...

False Alarm...

...I'm happy to say, but it was a harrowing experience!  To start from the beginning, Jaydon has always has a bump on the side of neck since he was born.  When he was small I'd have the Doctor check it at every appointment and the doc would always say it was nothing.  I got to the point of forgetting all about until our recent trip home.  Several relatives pointed it out and with the new attention I had for it, it seemed to be getting bigger.  So in Jan when we got back to Doha I asked the doc.  Again, he said it was nothing but decided to order an ultrasound just to be sure.  At the end of Jan we got the ultrasound done.  What was supposed to be 15 minutes for the report results turned into an hour and a half with the nurses giving me various excuses as to why it was taking so long and finally just giving up and telling me they'd come find me when it was ready.  I finally got the report and started reading it on my way back pediatrics to find words like - lymphoma, metastasis, thyroid carcinoma and lots of other scary medical terms that you never want to see on a report. 
My stomach in my throat I headed over to the pediatrician to understand what he had to say.  (Fortunately, our friends the Fenns had arrived to get some shots for their son so I was able to leave Jaydon with them while speaking to the doctor.)  He was particularly unhelpful and basically told me that we needed to do blood tests, x-rays, cat scans and a biopsy to determine what the issue was.  He asked me what I knew about Lymphoma and I mentioned that we had put our dog down from it less then a month ago - he made some absurd comment about how "that's not what we do with kids" - and that was basically the end of his bed side manner. 
Overwhelmed and in complete shock I went to see our company doctor.  He had just newly arrived in Doha so was being very careful about what advice to give me but was very helpful in explaining what this could be and was very positive that it was likely nothing.  He convinced me to go ahead and get the blood tests and x-ray since at this point the more information we had the better. 
That night we got online and started researching cancer treatment centers and quickly landed on MD Anderson.  It was in Houston and very well respected.  We sent them an e-mail and within 3 hours had a phone call back.  (Which was a huge relief given the kind of medical experiences we're used to here in Doha)  They have a whole department specializing in overseas patients.  The lady who called us was from Qatar and understood the medical system here.  She mentioned that her past 2 cases from Hamad (the public hospital here) had been misdiagnosed.  She agreed to get Jaydon's case looked at by a specialist as soon as possible. 
The next day the tests results were in - everything was negative so the pediatrician basically told me that he couldn't do anything further to help us get to a conclusion.  I needed to either go to Hamad or overseas if I wanted certainty as to what we were dealing with.  After many sleepless nights and several discussions with the company doctor and my brother (and his girlfriend) who are in medical school we decided to get Jaydon back to Houston.  We don't have a lot of confidence in the medical system here and if the worst came back from the tests we knew we'd go to back to the US for treatment so better just to start everything off there to begin with. 
The MD Anderson doctor agreed to see us as soon as we could make it to Houston, we considered canceling Jaydon's birthday but once we made the decision to go to Houston everything slowed down.  Our contact at MD Anderson went on vacation, her stand-in took over a week to get the insurance cleared and then finally we had an appointment for Feb 16.  It was a tough decision to stay home and send Steve off with Jaydon but since I'm still breast feeding Tylor it was the right one to make (Tylor certainly didn't need an unnecessary trip to Houston).  I loaded the boys on the airplane and they headed off for a boys 'vacation' (which is what we told people who didn't know the whole story).  On the plane Steve and Jaydon sat next to a young girl who was on spring break going to visit her sister and take her to Disney world.  Coincidentally her sister happened to be at MD Anderson - getting treated for Lymphoma...
Jaydon was a great traveler and made it to Houston with no issues (unlike our last trip where he was sick with a fever).  They met with the Lymphoma specialist and he gave Jaydon a thorough examination and said it was very unlikely that anything was wrong.  This was a great relief but at the same time, in a weird way, a disappointment that we had done all this planning and worrying and traveling for absolutely nothing.  The doctor had no interest in doing a biopsy and told Steve to bring Jaydon back for another exam in a week before they went back to Doha (apparently Lymphoma is very aggressive and he would see a difference in Jaydon's condition if indeed he had the disease).  That was on Thursday and that weekend was President's weekend so everything was closed.  Steve decided to take a road trip over to Louisiana while they waited for the weekend to pass. 
On Tuesday when everything was open again Steve scheduled another ultrasound just to confirm what they had seen in Doha.  Wed they did the ultrasound and then all of sudden we were back at square 1.  This time the area they focused on was the Thyroid.  This was mentioned on the first test but apparently not in a way that made the doctors take much notice.  This time they immediately contacted the endocrine specialist.  The next day Jaydon went to see her and she decided that a biopsy was necessary.  So at this point I was rescheduling the flight back so Jaydon could stay a few more days for the biopsy that we thought we had sent them there for to begin with.  Worrying, sleepless nights understanding every bit of information in the Internet started all over again.
He had the biopsy, they tested his Thyroid and since they were there his Lymph nodes too (which the original doctor maintained wasn't necessary).  As suspected by everyone involved, everything came back negative.  He has larger then normal Lymph nodes and nodules in his Thyroid that ended up being nothing more than some misplaced Thymus tissue.  With the good news Jaydon and Steve headed back to Doha.  It was quite an experience but fortunately it was all a big false alarm... 

Happy Valentines.. I mean Sports Day

So you may have heard about Doha winning the 2022 World Cup and bidding for the Summer Olympics.  Well there's a big effort here to make Doha a tourist destination for sports (since it wouldn't be a desitination for the scenery or weather...).  This year they decided to even make a national holiday for it - Sports Day.  Everyone got off work and was 'encourged' to participate in sporting events. 

It also happened to be Valentine's Day so it was nice to spend a day at home with the boys. 

Tylor had fun ridding his car around with Samina.

That night we decided to take the whole family out to Chili's for dinner. 

We didn't do much sports per se but definitely enjoyed the day off anyway!

Jaydon's 3!

Jaydon turned 3 today.  An boy did he have quite a day - but not in the way you would hope a 3 year birthday to go.  He had been fighting off his coughing sickness again and woke up that morning tired and grumpy. 

Even coming downstairs to an almost life size T-rex couldn't lift his spirits.  Finally at 10am, we agreed to let him go back to bed (which gave us time to finish decorating). 

He laid there for an hour trying to sleep and instead coughing until one of his coughing fits caused him to throw up.  We got him up, in the bath, changed his bed, loaded him up on more medicine and got his cough under control enough to get a little lunch in him.  Put him back down for a nap at noon only to have him throw up again an hour later and this time he had a fever. 

3 hours until party time with everything set-up, even the dinosaur shaped jigglers ready to go, and the birthday boy had a fever!!! 

There was no way I was going to cancel the party (I had taken the day before off to bake up his '3' cake and matching cupcakes). 

He finally got to sleep and the guests started to arrive.  We woke him up and asked him to come down and see everyone.  He was not himself and put up with people playing with his toys and making too much noise for about 20 minutes before he had a meltdown.  I put him back in his bed and he stayed there for half an hour until he felt better. 

Once he decided he was able to face the party again, we used the opportunity to light up the candles and sing to him.  After a little cake and ice cream he started feeling a lot better but it certainly wasn't the kind of day we had hoped he would have (and we ended up with very few pictures). 

Tylor wasn't too phased by it all - he hung out with the ladies turning on his charm.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAYDON!

Birthday Presents

Knowing that Jaydon would be overwhelmed with birthday presents after his party we let him open the family ones a little early. 

In keeping with the theme of the event he got a neat pop-up dinosaur book (which Tylor ripped up within days). 

A dinosaur train with Laura Giganotasaurus. 

Tylor was very curious about all these new toys around and couldn't understand why he wasn't allowed to play with them. 

But Jaydon's favorite present was his new airplane from Samina.  It lit up and spun around in circles (well at least for a few days it did).