"...and Durango's for you, and Durango's for you....."

     Today was Brock's big day, the day he's been waiting for since since last year.  We've known he's needed surgery for a long time now, but Brock decided he wanted to play through the football season before having the surgery.  So, he's been hurting since basketball ended last year.  The problem was that he had an OCD lesion on his talus.  It looked almost exactly like this, but the chunk of cartilage and bone that had come loose and broken off was even bigger than this picture shows:

Dr. Leitze made 3 or 4 little incisions in his ankle to make the repair.  He said the loose cartilage was about the size of 1 square centimeter, which was quite substantial, even bigger than her thought it would be.  He removed that chunk, scraped off the bone, then drilled 4 little holes right in the talus, this allows pathways for new blood vessels to nourish the area.  This procedure is successful in about 80-90% of patients, Brock better be one of those.  Brock now has 5-6 weeks without putting any weight on his foot, then he'll start physical therapy.  Eventually, he should return to 100%.  The biggest problem is that his other foot still hasn't completely healed form the injury he got in his last football game, so he'll be in a wheelchair for a while.  What a hassle, but at least it will give both feet a chance to heal.
   
     This was Brock's first surgery, so we didn't really know what to expect from him.  We kind of laughed and made fun of him when they had to go get a bigger gown and booties for him to wear because he's such a big kid, but Brock really loved it when they had to get a bigger blood pressure cuff because of the size of his bicep!  Brock was pretty calm before the surgery, he wasn't even very nervous at all, I think he was more worried about the recovery than the surgery.  I was probably nervous enough for both of us!!

Here he is right before they took him back.  I love the hat, it's just so Brock :)  The surgery was only supposed to take a an hour, but the doctor didn't end up coming to talk to me for almost 2 hours, it took a little longer than he expected.  So, of course, every minute after 1 hour I started getting more and more worried.  But, thankfully, everything went as planned.  I was waiting for him in his recovery room, and I heard a lot of laughing when I heard them coming down the hall.  The nurses were totally laughing.  Apparently, Brock is a pretty funny kid when he's coming out of anesthesia!  They said he was hilarious.  The nurse said that Brock kept looking around the room and telling everyone that he was going to buy them all Christmas presents.  He kept pointing to each person in recovery and saying, "and for you, Durango's!  and for you, Durango's!  and for you, Durango's!"  The nurse told me he had promised up to about $600 in Durango's gift cards in the 15 minutes he was in the pacu!  He also said that Brock just kept overly and dramatically thanking everyone for fixing his ankle and for saving his life.  He wanted to give all of them big hugs to thank them!  They were all getting a big kick out of him!  He was wide awake by the time he got to me, it didn't take him long at all.  Then he started acting just like Abby does in recovery, he wanted to get out there ASAP!  So about 30 minutes later, we were out of there!  It was a long day though, we checked in at 8:15, and didn't leave until 3:00.  Now he just needs to be patient, follow the doctor's orders and recover.  He'll go back to the doctor in 10 days to get his stitches out, until then, he's supposed to just take it easy.  No school until Monday.

   
     The other big event of the day was that while I was waiting in the waiting room for Brock to be done, I saw my mom and dad walking down the hall in the hospital.  I guess that my dad woke up this morning feeling lousy and with his heart having some afib issues, so his cardiologist wanted him to come back to the hospital.  while I was in recovery with Brock, they were readmitting my dad.  They're still running some tests now to see what's going on.  Hopefully, it's nothing too serious.  But, my backup babysitters for Brock won't be able to help anymore, but I'll work things out.  Brock and I stopped by to visit on our way out of the hospital, and they were already trying to figure out what's going on.

 Lately, all of this medical stuff we've been dealing with, almost seems ridiculous.  How can we not just laugh?  It's either laugh or cry, I'd rather laugh, but sometimes I don't get to choose.  Whatever happens, just happens, I've lost most control of that now!  The saddest part of all of this is that next Thursday, I'll be right back at the hospital in the waiting room again, while Britt is getting her tonsils out.  But, for now, I can't think about that, I think it's better to only take things one day at a time.

     Abby spent the morning at the hospital with me.  She still hasn't been feeling great this week, she has zero energy and she spends a lot of time each day sleeping.  When she's awake, she feels okay, but has a headache.  but she's exhausted most of the time.  I haven't been able to worry too much about her, and I haven't even called the transplant team, I'm just watching her still.  She's had lots of swelling in her feet this past week too.  This is the picture she sent me from school last Friday to show me her cankles:

   The transplant team made some med changes last Friday, and we're still waiting to see if they'll start working soon.  If things don't change by this Friday, I'll be calling them to see what we should do next.  One thing I know for sure is that I can't go to PCMC for the next two weeks, not until Britt's recovered from her tonsillectomy, so I hope they don't want us to.  That would definitely cause some anxiety and problems.
     Another reason Abby came with me was because I was too nervous to have her go to school.  There were just too many similarities between today and the day she collapsed on May 18th.  I was too scared that she would go to school and I'd get a phone call from her school, just like when I was waiting for Britt's knee surgery last May.  It was just too scary, I'm kind of glad Abby didn't feel good enough to go to school today, it made the decision to let her stay with me easier.  There was a story on the news yesterday about a basketball player from Utah State that collapsed in practice.  The team trainer revived him by doing CPR and then using an AED.  They still haven't said what the cause of the collapse was, but I will be very surprised if it's not some type of cardiomyopathy.  Hearing the story and the family's reaction was so familiar, it brought everything right back.  When we heard the story on the news last night, all 4 of us just kind of sat there without talking for a few minutes, our eyes were wide and we just kept looking at each other.  I knew we were all thinking the same thing.  No matter how much time goes by, the memories of that day will always be right on the surface.