Still sick, no appetite

Four days later, Riley is still not himself. It's four o'clock and the only food he's eaten today is two bites of cereal at breakfast and half a slice of cheddar cheese. He's had a few sips of chocolate milk and probably six ounces of watered-down grape juice.

Yesterday, we tried to get him interested in strawberry-flavored PediaSure. I called it "strawberry milk," which he assumed was the Hershey's kind, but one gritty sip was enough. I also got some PediaLite popsicles, but we have yet to try them. Someone told us they are nasty, so we went with the good, old-fashioned Popsicle brand with grape, cherry, and orange. But he's not a fan of those either...a couple of licks is enough.

I feel at this point, it's the chicken and the egg. He feels crappy because he has no energy from not eating, and he's not eating because he feels crappy. Not sure how to break out of this cycle. He's still getting Tylenol around the clock. We switched to bubblegum flavor, which apparently tastes just like his amoxicillin, so he's been more agreeable when it comes to medicine-time.

We also got out many of the old pictures from his last surgery (May 2004), and talked about his upcoming surgery. He didn't ask many questions, but he did like seeing "Randi" and "Mabel" at the end of his hospital bed. And he wanted to make sure that they would be there this time too.