Things have admittedly been pretty quiet over here chez ikeasaurus.com. After the stellar success and hard work of the live auction, we decided to take a step back, take some deep breaths, and let things settle. I think the family needed a little space to let things sink in, and we wanted to give them that space.

Relatively speaking, Ike is pretty stable and has finally been approved for Medicaid. The auction proceeds are paying the mountains of co-pays and trachs and all that other good (?) stuff. It won’t last forever, but the family needs some time to feel as relatively normal as they can for as long as they can.

A trip to Cincinnati is still in their future to see the Big Important Infant Airway doctor. And there is the possibility that Ike will have his trach for much longer than had been hoped. I encourage you to keep up with Kari’s blog for all of those updates. There is one post that sums up where they are now pretty thoroughly:

I am not happy about being told to reset my expectations. I don’t want to hear that. Who does? But I am not willing to accept it – not without a lot more tests that will prove to me to beyond a doubt that Ike has this terrible reflux, it has caused his stenosis, it must be treated with surgery, etc. I am not taking someone’s word on this. I want numbers and pictures and meetings and discussions before anything happens to my expectations.

Click here to read the full post.

I think it is a very real possibility that we will need to go into fundraising mode again in the future – it is something we are happy to do to keep this wonderful family afloat. So please keep us in your feed reader, keep checking back. We are in a calm right now, and all hoping fervently it is not before a storm. But like a thousand boy scouts, we are staying prepared.

WHILE I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION . . .

I wanted to point you to an awesome web site that is having a t-shirt drive for Ike! Highlowaha.com is a site all about the mingling of creativity with community – that sounds right up our alley, eh?

They sent us a SUPER CUTE new Ike design for our Cafepress store:

And have challenged their readers to purchase 21 shirts by 8/18/09! Head over to their web site to read all about it, and check out this new design in our cafepress store!

We are sending a big Ikeasaurus T-Rex sized hug to the ladies at Highlowaha!