Good day

Olivers surgery went really well. We had a really crazy weekend getting ready. Everybody in the house had a cold except for Oliver. Thank You God! We got a call Monday morning and they said, "We need you to come early, we need to do a muscle biopsy too and it has to be at HCMC by 1:00!" So we ran around the house, got Adina to school, and made it to the hospital. HCMC is Hennepin County Medical Center. They process the muscle sample and get it sent off to different labs around the country. Our neurologist pulled some large strings in order for them to do this biopsy. They were not able to do it last week at Gillette, but life always works itself out! The doc today first just took a look at his throat. He had quite a bit of Tracheomalacia, which basically means he has a floppy airway. They could have opened it by using a laser but there is no guarantee that it would eliminate the problem or that it would last long. The thought of having Oli recover from that and then possible having another surgery in a month or two did not seem right. He now has a trach and he woke up happy! He did not D-sat and other than seeming a little confused he was actually content. He had a BIG smile for daddy! Now we just wait for healing. In a few days they will do the first trach change. After about seven days he should be out of PICU and then it is training time for the fam. I have worked with trachs so I am comfortable with suctioning, changes, etc. I will still go through training with John, but I was able to "test out" of suctioning and they have let me perform as many cares as they can let me do. The nurse told John and I to both stay home and get rest as performing all of Olivers cares can be so exhausting and we could use this as a little break. We made it about 20 minutes of both being home and we couldn't take it! We can't leave Oli alone. John is staying nights with the dude, and I am there during the day. John has his own little room with a full bed so life is good! Thanks for the prayers. Oliver seemed to validate our decision by the way he woke up, which is great because it is sometimes hard to know if we have made the right decision. Life is good!