Annabelle Update

When the wife and Annabelle were in post-op recovery Thursday morning, waiting for the hospital room to be set up, I decided to head to the cafeteria, pick up lunch and then meet up with the girls at the room.

As I approached the nursing station, the nurse at the desk looked up and said, "Now . . . let me see . . . ." tapping her chin . . ."You must be Annabelle's dad . . . ."

"How did you know?", I asked.

"I have a gift for that sort of thing . . ." she chuckled. That's when I remembered that Holly and I were both sporting out "Go Annabelle" shirts . . . The nurses all loved them.

We have been continually impressed with the treatment and care we have received from Mary Birch hospital and Rady Children's hospital. What a talented and amazing group of people.

This time around we want to say a big "Thank you" to Nurse Helen, Nurse Beth and Respiratory Therapist Nikki - of course there were others but these are the three that we spent the most time with.

Here is Helen (left) and Nikki (right) as we were getting ready to leave yesterday (taken with my lousy camera phone):

Annie is home and doing great.

She is sleeping a little bit more but other than that and the incision on the side of her head, you wouldn't know that this week had been anything but run-of-the mill. She is her happy chatty self.

I am learning to make a distinction between a medical procedure and a recovery time. The two do not always go hand in hand like you would expect them to. Annabelle had double brain surgery Thursday morning. She was groggy all day but back to her old self and almost pain-free by Friday morning.

We are still dosing her with infant Tylenol syrup every four hours but I am starting to think that has more to do with us as parents wanting to do something as Annabelle really isn't showing any signs of discomfort at this point.

Much to my chagrin, I think the cold I passed on to her is bothering her more than the brain surgery.

Brain surgery is intimidating, seemingly fraught with danger and peril - but the recovery (at least in this case) is just not that big a deal.

Contrast that with the time I got stung on my foot by a stingray a few years back and had to have an infected toenail removed . . . simple no-risk procedure . . . followed by weeks of painful hobbling around. Or maybe I am just a big baby and Annabelle is a super hero . . . I'll let you decide . . .

Here is our doctor's appointments for the next 5 weeks:

Monday, 1/26 - Post-op Check-up with Neurosurgeon

Monday, 1/26 - Post -op check-up with Pediatrician

Friday, 1/30 - Physical therapy

Friday - 1/30 - Occupational Therapy

Friday 1/30 - Infant Therapy

Friday, 2/6 - Infant Therapy

Friday 2/13 - Infant Therapy

Tuesday, 2/17 - Club Foot Clinic Check-up

Tuesday, 2/17 - Kidney and Bladder Ultrasound

Tuesday, 2/17 - Spinal Defects Clinic

Friday, 2/20 - Infant Therapy

Friday, 2/27 - Infant Therapy

12 appointments in the next 5 weeks. Not too bad, actually. If we were still going to the club foot clinic on a weekly basis and if the Plastic Surgeon hadn't popped in to take a look at Annie while we were there, we would have 17 appointments instead of 12.

Of course, these appointments get jumbled, switched and moved around on a daily basis so it's always in "pencil" . . .

Which reminds me, when we showed up at the neurosurgeon this past Tuesday morning, the receptionist said she had changed our appointment to the afternoon without checking with us because she had seen in the system that we had a pediatrician appointment that same morning. I told her I had no idea our appointment had been changed and she half-rolled her eyes and said she had left me a voice mail.

A number of responses sprang to the tip of my tongue and I clamped my mouth shut and sat down. The doc saw us at the originally scheduled time . . . .

Thank you for your continued prayers!