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Matthew began attending a home daycare when he was 18 months old and during that time before he started preschool this year, he had a string of ear infections, pink eye a couple of times, the flu, and a number of colds. We just tell him to eat his vegetables.

Jacob also had a string of ear infections from when he was about 12 months old but he was only one shy of tubes in his ears. He started daycare in a preschool this year and after a few weeks, he had a cold that developed into his first pneumonia. And his second pneumonia developed a few weeks after when he had returned to daycare. And his third a fourth pneumonias developed after he returned to daycare following neurosurgery. Exposure to other children however explains how but not why. So we are again looking for answers and I hope that he is just one of those children who grows out of being sick all of the time.

Next week, Jacob is scheduled to have a sweat test to rule out Cystic Fibrosis. It is an unlikely possibility, but my sister found that she was a carrier for the gene involved so I felt that for my own peace of mind I needed to know that Jacob is unaffected. We also have an appointment with a pulmonary specialist at Hasbro at which I will request a swallow test to be sure that Jacob is not aspirating, or swallowing down the wrong pipe - a possibility given his right hemiparesis. Another possibility is that his asthma treatment plan needs to be reassessed. Hopefully we will have some answers within the next few weeks.

Apart from the antibiotics and breathing treatments, Jacob is still flourishing. Constraint Therapy III will be over in three days and I am excited to see his post-therapy evaluation.

And he has finally said "o-pah".

OPEN!