Big Info Dump: Pre-Op and more...
Sorry this might get a bit rambly. It's been a long day and our stress levels have been so high lately I'm a bit punchy even though its only 8pm here.
We made it through all the pre-op appointments today and even had a little fun. We started off the morning at Children's Craniofacial Center's offices which are right here near the hospital in Dallas. We visited for a little while with Char, Jill, and Annie in the office and found out that Jill's family has history in my hometown of Racine, WI and that she's from the Milwaukee area originally like Mom and Dad. Isaiah got another stuffed animal, this time a kangaroo from Kohl's Care. I'm pretty sure that's got to put him over the 100 mark on stuffed animals, or at least it feels like it.
His first appointment was at 11 with imaging and he did pretty well sitting for his 'before' pictures. They document his head in general, but mainly his forehead, and they took a number of pictures of his hands and feet as reference for how they're growing. It's almost like the medical version of school pictures for his files and will probably be pretty interesting to look at in a few years.
Next we had to register with the hospital which went much smoother than the first time we were here four years ago. We were not asked the dreaded question of how we would be paying for our $10,000 deductible. Its amazing what different insurance that has the hospital in-network and all of Rachel's work getting the single case agreements set up with all the physicians has done. It definitely nice to have one less looming thing to worry about and its partially why we made sure to do the surgery this calendar year while we knew what our insurance plan covered.
After that we had the normal medical history info gather, visit with child life in the mock Operating Room which may have freaked out Isaiah more than it calmed him, and then the dreaded blood work which did not go so great. His level of hospital anxiety is on high alert right now. If you know us from church at Passion City and ever see Isaiah running around with his bloom tag on his pants belt loop rather than his wrist the anxiety has much to do with it. Here we had to put it on his ankle since it can't be on a piece of clothing that can come off and the second it goes on he starts going 'take it off' and the waterworks start. He did okay with height and weight, but vitals started getting interesting. They needed to get a fair amount of blood from him so they put numbing creme on both arms so we were on distraction duty for 30 mins to try to keep him from peeling the bandages off before it was done working. He's fully worked up at this point, screaming and crying and they haven't taken a drop a blood yet. We calmed him down by watching some roller coaster videos on daddy's phone and that worked for a little while at least. When time came for the blood to be drawn you'd think they were cutting the kid open with the level of screaming and crying but it was over soon enough and he calmed down when I told him we'd go see the fountains since we had to run by security and get a parking pass for the week.
We then grabbed a quick lunch and then came back to the hospital for his appointment with Dr Fearon. He's happy to not see any signs of Chiari (brain growing down the spinal chord cavity) on Isaiah's MRI and the plan of attack for surgery remains the same. Here's a nice little snap shot of Isaiah with Dr. F. If all goes well with this surgery we won't need another major cranio surgery until he's 8 or 9 when they do the big midface advancement surgery.
After that we went over to North Park Mall to burn off some energy and got Isaiah some planes from the Disney store for being a good boy most of the day. We then all had our first ever In-N-Out Burgers to cap off the day.
Tonight will be a bit rough for us, but Isaiah is strangely calm right now. Food cut off is 11:30 tonight and clear liquid cutoff is 4:30 in the morning. We report to the hospital at 6am tomorrow.
We're very thankful for everyone's prayers and know that God is going to be with Isaiah through it all.
We made it through all the pre-op appointments today and even had a little fun. We started off the morning at Children's Craniofacial Center's offices which are right here near the hospital in Dallas. We visited for a little while with Char, Jill, and Annie in the office and found out that Jill's family has history in my hometown of Racine, WI and that she's from the Milwaukee area originally like Mom and Dad. Isaiah got another stuffed animal, this time a kangaroo from Kohl's Care. I'm pretty sure that's got to put him over the 100 mark on stuffed animals, or at least it feels like it.
His first appointment was at 11 with imaging and he did pretty well sitting for his 'before' pictures. They document his head in general, but mainly his forehead, and they took a number of pictures of his hands and feet as reference for how they're growing. It's almost like the medical version of school pictures for his files and will probably be pretty interesting to look at in a few years.
Next we had to register with the hospital which went much smoother than the first time we were here four years ago. We were not asked the dreaded question of how we would be paying for our $10,000 deductible. Its amazing what different insurance that has the hospital in-network and all of Rachel's work getting the single case agreements set up with all the physicians has done. It definitely nice to have one less looming thing to worry about and its partially why we made sure to do the surgery this calendar year while we knew what our insurance plan covered.
After that we had the normal medical history info gather, visit with child life in the mock Operating Room which may have freaked out Isaiah more than it calmed him, and then the dreaded blood work which did not go so great. His level of hospital anxiety is on high alert right now. If you know us from church at Passion City and ever see Isaiah running around with his bloom tag on his pants belt loop rather than his wrist the anxiety has much to do with it. Here we had to put it on his ankle since it can't be on a piece of clothing that can come off and the second it goes on he starts going 'take it off' and the waterworks start. He did okay with height and weight, but vitals started getting interesting. They needed to get a fair amount of blood from him so they put numbing creme on both arms so we were on distraction duty for 30 mins to try to keep him from peeling the bandages off before it was done working. He's fully worked up at this point, screaming and crying and they haven't taken a drop a blood yet. We calmed him down by watching some roller coaster videos on daddy's phone and that worked for a little while at least. When time came for the blood to be drawn you'd think they were cutting the kid open with the level of screaming and crying but it was over soon enough and he calmed down when I told him we'd go see the fountains since we had to run by security and get a parking pass for the week.
We then grabbed a quick lunch and then came back to the hospital for his appointment with Dr Fearon. He's happy to not see any signs of Chiari (brain growing down the spinal chord cavity) on Isaiah's MRI and the plan of attack for surgery remains the same. Here's a nice little snap shot of Isaiah with Dr. F. If all goes well with this surgery we won't need another major cranio surgery until he's 8 or 9 when they do the big midface advancement surgery.After that we went over to North Park Mall to burn off some energy and got Isaiah some planes from the Disney store for being a good boy most of the day. We then all had our first ever In-N-Out Burgers to cap off the day.
Tonight will be a bit rough for us, but Isaiah is strangely calm right now. Food cut off is 11:30 tonight and clear liquid cutoff is 4:30 in the morning. We report to the hospital at 6am tomorrow.
We're very thankful for everyone's prayers and know that God is going to be with Isaiah through it all.
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