Sunday evening in November...

Dear Nicky,

Pardon me for the brevity of my last couple notes, my boy. Sometimes I just get so tired I can't keep my eyes open. I don't know why that should be. I'm actually going to bed earlier than I used to. It's all due to the surgery I think. Somehow it messed up my internal clock. Or maybe not, who knows? Anyway, to catch you up really quick: On Friday we took you all the way out to Livingston out past Stepping Stones to the St. Barnabas ambulatory medical center to have some blood drawn. See, we want to do a thyroid test and needed some blood, and since the last time we were at this place they did such a spectacular job finding your veins, we thought we'd walk right in and they'd do the same thing over again. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. They stuck you twice in an attempt to find a vein with no luck but much pain to you. It breaks our hearts to see you cry in pain. They couldn't find a vein so they wanted to call it quits, but Mom insisted that we weren't going to make you go through this torture again, so they did a heel stick and got some blood from there. I hope it was enough for testing. You were so brave, it did our hearts proud. On Saturday not much went on, though you are doing better on exercising and sitting and rolling, and Sunday was pretty much the same as Saturday, except we went out for a nice long walk this afternoon. I hope you weren't too cold; I worry excessively and obsessively about things like that, I'm afraid.

Love,
Dad