A little late posting the new information on Ian. We had the transplant center visit two weeks ago (almost). My wife fell ill, so it was just Ian and me going to Atlanta. He did very well on the flight down and all the running about. We borrowed my brother-in-law's little pickup to run to the hospital, and Ian got a real kick out of being able to see so well. Normally, he is in the back seat and cannot see much of anything, so to be able to see right out onto the road, he giggled for about 10 minutes before he finally fell asleep for the rest of the drive. It was very entertaining for me, as well, to see him so tickled about something so simple. The doctors are very pleased with his progress and development, and they were excited to see him walking around. They took labs and Ian's PELD works out to about a 19. That is a 5 point increase over last time, but it always goes up a bit at the labs in Atlanta. We'll visit Dr. Cordle in January and have labs drawn again, so we'll see what they are then.

We left the transplant center at 3:30 and drove like mad back to the airport trying to catch a 4:58 flight. Problem: anytime after 3:00 is rush hour in Atlanta. We didn't make it. This turned out to be a good thing because Ian had had an issue with his diaper, and that would have been a very unpleasant flight for all (him, me, and the other passengers). The whole problem started earlier, though, when we landed. AFter we touched down in Atlanta, Ian and I found a restroom and changed his diaper. Then we went to the baggage claim to get his carseat, which I had checked. They had told us that all items would be at carousel two. I got there, looked around, didn't see anything, so I asked an employee if his carseat should be there and provided my flight number. He said yes, and it just must not be out yet. Twenty minutes go by. No carseat. I looked to the far end of the hall, and see something that looks ironically like his carseat, so we took a little walk. Sure enough, it was down there. This led to us being late getting to the hospital, and then late leaving, and thus missing the ideal flight. A tip: oversize items come to a different carousel. Why didn't this other employee know this?

My sister-in-law came and picked us up so we didn't have to wait at the airport, which was very nice. After a few hours in Newnan, she returned Ian and me to the airport, and we made the 9:50 flight easily. Ian was exhausted by this point, having slept a broken 45 minutes total that day (he is accustomed to a couple hours). While taxiing for take-off, he fell asleep on my lap and did not wake up until we were getting off the plane in Roanoke. He was probably a better traveller than I was.