Having internet freely available is really fantastic. I didn't pack many bedtime stories to read to Gemma at night. There are plenty of books here, but of course they are all in German. I googled "Repunzel" and found a great website with hundreds of stories to read. We read two and now Gemma is now very relaxed and almost asleep beside me, after a busy day.
Today has been a public holiday, so Gemma's program will officially only start tomorrow. We made the most of our last day, by exploring a bit of the city. Firstly, however, Gemma played with a bread roll for breakfast. She broke it up into hundreds of pieces without putting any in her mouth. but at least she is showing a positive feeling towards food which I think is a good start. I met with Prof. Dunitz-Scheer shortly afterwards, and we decided to drop all of her feeds by 25mls each. Gemma has made friends with many of the children in the ward already, and was being taught to sing "head, shoulders, knees and toes"by an older girl, Annamaria, when Michael and Bryce arrived. The guesthouse doesn't have a bath, so we bathed Bryce in Gemma's bath. Just before Gemma's 11am feed we offered her some bread, nutella, banana's and yoghurt. She chose to have two bites of a banana, a lot of which she spat out, but she did have two spoonfuls of yoghurt. Her blood sugar level at 11am was 4.3. This is a great result, even after having reduced her feed slightly. A suggestion in the Lonely Planet to entertain children was the Schlossbergbahn. This is a train that takes you up to a Fortress in the middle of the city. Before we went up the train, we went on a children's train taking us through a tunnel of caves inside the mountain. Every few seconds we passed different fairytale scenes. I will try post some pictures soon so you can see how sweet it was. I'm not sure who enjoyed the trip more - the children or us. We then went up the side of the mountain on the real train. Gemma ate half a tuc biscuit on the way up. The views of the city from above are really stunning. We had a picnic at the top. Gemma took about 5 slices of ham, stacked them up and folded them over and said she was building a house. She then wanted to give her house to a little girl she met. I can't imagine what her parents were thinking when they saw a pile of meat being offered to their little girl. We went down the mountain via a glass lift. It was nearing 14:30, time for Gemma's next feed. She was showing signs of low sugar (irratability). Her sugar was 2.9, which is fairly low, but gave her her feed. We then headed back to the clinic area to meet friends (Bronwen and Peter) of a friend (Kelly). Kelly introduced Bronwen (South African) to us via facebook. We had a cappuccino and cheesecake with them. It was really great to meet them and our conversations flowed freely, as if we have known them for a long time. We have met many wonderful people during Gemma's journey, most of whom we may have only met briefly but consider great friends. We feel extremely blessed with all the goodness that surrounds us. I hate to say, but today we witnessed Bryce breaking his first heart. When we arrived at the Coffee Shop, a little girl, Bryce's age came running to him and they immediately embraced each other with a big hug and even a kiss on the cheeks. She was with her father, and a few minutes later he wanted to leave. She was very upset, and crying ran back to Bryce to give him another hug before they left. As she walked past us, she had such a bounce in her step as if she had acheived something grand. It was SO adorable. Bryce however, found another family with older children, to play with while we could enjoy a peaceful chat. Gemma at this stage had fallen asleep in her pram. We were a bit concerned because of yesterday's incident when her blood sugars dropped as soon as she slept. I tested her,but thankfully her sugars were good. The poor child can hardly rest peacefully with her paranoid mother constantly pricking and prodding her. It started to get chilly, so we said our goodbyes and headed back to the clinic. We laid out some food for the children. Gemma had about 2 spoons of yoghurt and 2 bites of an apple. She spat about half out and stored the other half in her cheek, which I am sure with time she must have swallowed as I did not see her spit it out. Her 18:00 blood sugar was good, so that made us very happy once again. Michael and Bryce went back after supper. Michael is going to be a lean machine by the end of this trip. How he manages that hill every evening with 13kgs of a Bryce on his back, I just don't know. I met with the endocrinologist very briefly this evening. I asked how she felt about Gemma joining the feeding clinic. Her honest answer was that it can be dangerous with the chances of Gemma going low, but that she can see Gemma is an intelligent child and we just need to monitor her continuously. I was appreciative by her honesty. As we have seen so far, Gemma's blood sugars are on average, looking better. From my personal point of view there does seems to be a pattern of higher blood sugar readings when she has eaten something substantial, like yoghurt for instance. Baby steps, just taking it one day at a time.
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