Black and White Wednesday - A Rock

Black and White Wednesday is run by Lisa over at
The Long Road to China.



This rock (with or without the bird) can be found at Harkness Memorial State Park in Waterford, CT. This was a summer estate, called Eolia, for the Harkness family. Obviously, they were loaded. This estate has over 230 acres of lawns, gardens, and beaches, not to mention that the mansion itself is pretty big. When I was there, the mansion was closed for tours, so I spent most of my time at the beach, of course. It was November, so it was pretty windy, but it was just so pretty!



If you noticed I haven't given any updates on Matty, that's because we were waiting to get test results and such. I went with him earlier this week to get bloodwork and a chest x-ray, and he also had an MRI. His nephrologist and pediatrician conferred about the bloodwork analysis, and they weren't happy. So we are headed to the children's hospital on Friday to meet with the nephrologist.

If you are now even more confused, I can understand. Matt's got several doctors - the neurologist, the nephrologist, our regular pediatrician, the orthopedic surgeon, the ENT specialist, etc. - aside from his therapists. His medical history obviously started the second he was born, and it has gotten quite colorful since then. To sum it up, he was born blind and with extensive nerve damage. When he was 8 years old, we discovered he had end-stage renal disease (his kidneys basically shut down). He was on dialysis for a year. When he was 9 years old, my mom donated a kidney to him. When he was 17 years old, he had scoliosis surgery. Those are the major events; he's been hospitalized for various other reasons in between times.

He's a fighter. With everything he's been through, any other person would have given up, would have let nature take its course. But he fights to stay strong and be calm, so we fight to keep him.