More fun adventures

I think we may have officially worn him out finally. We headed back to Adventure Landing, and they had unlimited Laser Tag and Putt-Putt until 6pm, so he had a blast. We finished up with another go-cart ride and a few arcade games before heading to dinner. Had some great Mexican food, then Zack requested ice-cream again. We, of course, did not say no. The cone was a bit more than he could handle, so we wiped him off as best we could and put him immediately into the shower! At least the chocolate was better than the blue!

We talked to a mom whose daughter had the surgery at Medical City, and she is planning to come visit us tomorrow while Zack is in surgery. We also talked to the family having the surgery after Zack's. They are at the same hotel, but their little guy crashed early, so we'll wait until tomorrow to catch up with them. Waiting for anesthesia to call tonight with our final instructions, then we'll call it a night and TRY to get some sleep. Actually, just got that call, so goodnight from here. I'll update again once he's in the O.R.

Wild Child

We got a bit of a slow start today. Transformers came on TV...Dave and I both fell asleep, but Zack made it up until the end (after midnight, I'm guessing!) Must have been all the sugar from the ice cream. We had to go to the other Children's Hospital in Dallas today to meet with the neurosurgeon, so we headed out early and went to "Wild About Harry's", where they serve hotdogs and frozen custard. Only. Quite yummy!

The appt with the neurosurgeon went well. He used the word "shady" to describe what the plastic surgeon did during his second surgery. Nice. He agrees that they'll have to swap front and back of the skull to get some good bone up front. He also plans to rip out a bunch of the "crap" (cadaver bone paste) that was used last time. Sounds like a good plan to us to get rid of some of that foreign material that hasn't turned into bone yet. Hindsight is 20/20, but I wish we'd have sought the second opinions then.

He's bouncing off the walls now, so we're off to drive the go-karts again, and possibly play some putt-putt or laser tag again. We'll hopefully meet up with some cranio friends for dinner and an early night...we'll check out of our room and be at the hospital by 6am tomorrow.

I'm the luckiest kid in the whole world!

Wow, what a day. Draining for sure. It started out OK, with some general pre-op stuff. He was great for the initial height/weight/temp, etc. As soon as they mentioned bloodwork, he was done! They put some "magic cream" on his arm to numb it, then had us do the rest of the appts. while it kicked in. The tears were flowing, so we opened one of his gifts (thanks, Curt!) and that helped distract him for awhile. He kept crying and pitching a fit through photos, but was great while meeting with the craniofacial and neurosurgery coordinators and anthropologist. The child life specialist was awesome with him and walked him through some role-playing with a doll getting bloodwork. His turn was next, and the kicking and screaming started again. The "magic cream" did its job, and I don't think he was in any pain, but the fear had him very upset. We had half an hour to kill before we met with the craniofacial surgeon, so we got some ice cream and all was forgiven!

The surgeon appt was very informative. He does think the best course is the reconstruction vs. just the bone graft. The issue is in the way the original surgeon did the first two surgeries...there is no "good" bone left up front to reconstruct the brow the way he would like. So, what he'll have to day is swap the bone from the front to the back of the skull in order to get the best angle up front. He still expects it'll take about 5 hours on Friday and that we'll spend one night in PICU, one night on the regular floor, then back to the hotel Sunday. He expects his eyes will still be swollen shut at that point, but says they sleep and recover better outside of the hospital. (And he told Zack that the good thing about his eyes being swollen shut is that we'll give him whatever he wants!)

We finally left the hospital to get some lunch at the "Purple Cow." (a reco from our child-life specialist, Amy!) Then we were off to Adventure Landing for a little break. Zack and Dave played a little Laser Tag, then Zack went to drive the Go-Karts. He had an absolute blast! When he was done, he kept saying that he was the luckiest kid in the world! (Which of course made me happy and broke my heart all at the same time!) He crashed within 10 minutes of getting back to the hotel. I think I'll join him for a bit.

Windy city?

We're safe and sound in the Windy City, or whatever Dallas' nickname is. Tonight it's the windy city with the remnants of Gustav kicking up quite the breeze. Zack was wonderful on the flight! His mouth hasn't stopped running all day. New experiences with him can always go either way, so I held my breath until we were up in the air, but he did great. The most we had to do was remind him to use his inside voice! When we got off the plane, he said he wasn't even scared about surgery. "Because it's only Tuesday."

We made it to the hotel without much trouble...Dave and Zack are digging the 42" TV! We ventured out a bit to grab some Sonic for dinner...Zack's pick. Though I think he expected to find Mario & Sonic there. Pre-ops start at 9am, but we're less than a mile from the hospital, so we won't have to head out too early, thank goodness. It's been a long day!

All clear!

Just got the all clear from Zack's peditrician. We love her. She told him he talked like a 10-year-old...right after he told her that Lizzie said he couldn't play her DS on the plane and that "irritated" him. She made us promise to email her all our pictures/updates. We stopped by Servaati's for some cookies for our flight. The forecast for Dallas is looking a bit better...T-storms instead of T-storms plus wind. We'll take it. I considered trying to get on an earlier flight, but no seats, so we'll have to hedge our bets with the last flight of the night. Hopefully Zack won't see any lightning from the plane...that would sufficiently freak him out since he doesn't like thunderstorms anyway!

We'll update everyone tonight or tomorrow when we're settled. He's in great spirits today, which is helping to keep me upbeat even though I'm scared silly! Alex and Lizzie are all dropped off for the day, so Zack and I are hanging out...he's watching TV and I'm "working" while Nancy is cleaning the house. At least we'll come home to a nice clean house next week! Keep the prayers coming...we can feel them!

Quote of the day!

Zack: "Wait a minute! Am I having head surgery or eye surgery?"
Me: "Head surgery."
Zack: "OK. Cool."

God love him! Why head surgery sounded better than eye surgery, I'll never know. But, we'll take it!

BTW...here are pics of him from a family wedding last week for anyone who hasn't seen them yet.
Suitcases all packed...time to start filling up carry-ons with toys and games for all of us!

Here we go again...

Today is packing day. I haven't gotten very far. I hate packing! So far, I have suitcases filled for Alex and Lizzie, and their schedule e-mailed out to all the family members who will be taking care of them while we're gone. We've charged up all the cameras and located the cords so we can download all our pics. I've updated iTunes with lots of new songs and updated my iPod, though we still need to get Zack's updated with every Bon Jovi song ever recorded. We've got all the gifts that have arrived over the last couple weeks (thank you everyone!!!) I know those are going to come in handy when he gets grouchy on us.

Zack is doing pretty well, still. The only way we know it's bothering him is that he keeps asking us how many days until Tuesday. He said today that he was excited about the airplane ride, but not the surgery. That's one more thing than I'm excited about. At least it looks like "Gustav" ended up hitting earlier and less hard than first thought, so hopefully Dallas won't have too much wind and rain tomorrow!

We fly out of Dayton at 6:00 tomorrow, so it'll be a late night by the time we get settled in to the hotel. Pre-ops start at 9 am Wednesday. By lunchtime we should know whether we'll do the full reconstruction again or just the split-skull bone graft. It'll feel good to have that decision behind us.

I better get back to packing while the boys are napping...it hard to do much while they are both awake, and I'm hoping for an early night!

Thank you all for the love and prayers that have gotten us through this summer of anticipation. We'll keep you all posted once we get settled in Dallas.