Too Many Items to Classify
We celebrated Matthew's 16th birthday the Wednesday before we left for Ohio. This meant he was left here in AL driving while we were 9 hours away. I think all in all he has done pretty good so far. This still does not keep me from worrying everytime he leaves the driveway.
We arrived in Ohio last Monday and got settled in for the night. Chaning had testing Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Each morning we started our day at 5:30 a.m. heading to the hospital. Of course, the first morning our TomTom decided to take us on the downtown route to Children's Hospital. After stopping and asking someone to pull up their mapquest on their iphone in the dark, going down a one-way street backwards and pulling into the swipe your card or you don't enter employee entrace only parking at the hospital, we finally found where we were to go. Keep in mind that the hospital was only 5 miles from the hotel. We decided that we would not do well on the Amazing Race show and will not be sending in our video tape any time soon.
Chaning did great each day and was a trooper. I also have to mention that we have used a Children's Hospital before and Cincinnati Children's by far blows away anything we have ever experienced. This is a top notch facility with excellent doctors, nurses and staff. I do not think we waited once for an appointment. They do not allow your child to get aggitated or scared without sending someone to you to entertain them and lift their spirits and mine too! They take that apprehensive feeling away from you and your child.
We met with Chaning's collorectal surgeon and gynecologist Thursday and Friday and received wonderful news that Chaning passed all her testing with flying colors. She will require surgery in the very near future. We will be going to Ohio for two weeks where she will stay in the hospital after receiving her two hour surgery and then receive food via IV fluids for 10 days. This is going to be a tough trip but one that will fix her forever. We are so thankful to be able to give her the care that she needs and look forward to a future for her surgery free, hopefully. We are told that from her history, they feel that this will be her sixth surgery - first here in the USA. Had her foster family not took such great care of her, she would probably have never made it here for this final surgery, for this we are forever greatful to them.
Our schedule gets more packed as the holidays near but we are having a lot of fun around here with this family of 7. Each day carries its own memories being made. Somedays my hair just grays right before my eyes. Tomorrow is the pumpkin patch with two out of the five. I love autumn.