{"id":4929,"date":"2025-12-21T20:45:44","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T23:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/21-12-2025\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T20:46:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T23:46:23","slug":"21-12-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/21-12-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"21\/12\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Hello, son,<\/p>\n\n<p>Yesterday, the start of the day went well. It was your first day without your feeding tube. There was no problem feeding you. You love to eat, and that&#8217;s fantastic!   <\/p>\n\n<p>Then, we tried to give you water. And that&#8217;s when it became much more complicated.  <br\/>As soon as a medication or any liquid substance, you refuse it. <br\/>The accessories we bought to try and give it to you don&#8217;t work either. <\/p>\n\n<p>Your stools show a possible risk of dehydration, and that worries us tremendously. <br\/>We spent the day trying, following the specialists&#8217; advice. But each time it&#8217;s difficult because you refuse, which makes the tension rise throughout the day.  <\/p>\n\n<p>Last night, we were exhausted. Anxious. Depressed. We wanted to give you water, but we couldn&#8217;t. You were crying. Fortunately, the person who helped us yesterday was there. The one who was supposed to come didn&#8217;t show up. This new person helped us get through this difficult moment. What was supposed to be a puree turned into a more or less liquid soup, and miraculously! we succeeded! Then you choked on your medication and coughed for 20 minutes, even though I still had 4 aerosols to administer&#8230;<br\/>It&#8217;s a good thing the person helping us was there because your mom and I were completely demoralized.         <\/p>\n\n<p>Anyway, the night passed, and at 4 AM, we started again.<br\/>Good news, you peed properly twice. <br\/>That makes us think it seems to be working. But the struggle continues.. <\/p>\n\n<p>\n          <strong>Change of subject<\/strong>\n        <\/p>\n\n<p>When I was little, Grandma and Grandpa and I always decorated the Christmas tree together.<br\/>This year, I told myself it was important to do it together.<br\/>So I bought a tiny Christmas tree because we&#8217;re a bit short on space here.<br\/>And then we did it right before your eyes. You were watching us. We laughed a lot because the tree fell three times due to the wind, with all the decorations rolling on the floor.   <\/p>\n\n<p>Actually, I think we&#8217;re going to have the best Christmas of our lives. Do you know why?  <br\/>Because we survived, and now we know the true value of life. (even if Grandma already knows it too well). <\/p>\n\n<p>I also wanted to surprise Grandma and Grandpa by taking a few photos without gowns or masks. <br\/>So we asked them to take a shower, change clothes, and sanitize everything, and in five minutes flat, we took a few photos. <br\/>Just to have a memory of this day when we decorated your first Christmas tree with Grandpa and Grandma!<\/p>\n\n<p>We&#8217;ll surely do more on Christmas Day, but this one was a little surprise for them. I know they are sad too. Sad to be far away. And I want them to keep a good memory of the time they spend with you.   <\/p>\n\n<p>What we&#8217;re going through is really not easy. <br\/>Every day I try to tell myself that when we get through this, we&#8217;ll be stronger. <\/p>\n\n<p>When you read this text, you&#8217;ll probably be 18 years old. <br\/>I hope with all my heart that you&#8217;ll be in great shape and that you&#8217;ll live life to the fullest. <br\/>And that you&#8217;ll look at the photos of your first Christmas tree and say, &#8220;they were crazy&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n<p>I love you<\/p>\n\n<p>Dad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello, son, Yesterday, the start of the day went well. It was your first day without your feeding tube. There was no problem feeding you. You love to eat, and that&#8217;s fantastic! Then, we tried to give you water. And that&#8217;s when it became much more complicated. As soon as a medication or any liquid [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memoirs-of-a-heros-dad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4930,"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4929\/revisions\/4930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopeforgabriel.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}