Plans for the year

We've been trying to get some things planned and scheduled out for the year. I realize that with the way our life works that's nearly impossible, but we really want to get to go on a vacation or two with the kids this year. We do have two planned. One is to Charleston and Myrtle Beach, SC. We're hoping for early summer as long as it's not too close to Ari's maintenance surgery. We're hoping to get her to the beach and let her play. This would also be Lily's first beach trip. Hopefully all goes well with that. Our second trip we're planning is to Florida. We promised Ari that since she's been so brave through all the surgery we would try to visit Mickey some time soon. This one we're hoping for towards the end of the year after her second maintenance surgery this year. We just have to make sure they're far enough out from the surgeries so that she can actually have fun on the trips. With restrictions like not being able to get her back wet and no running, jumping, twisting, etc. we're hoping that everything falls as we expect for the schedule of surgeries. It will most likely be two surgeries this year, but there is an off change that the second one will be pushed out until next year. That would be great for everyone, but it depends on how fast she is growing. The faster she grows, the more surgeries she needs. I'm sure we'll be getting ahold of some people in April once we know how long Ari will be out of school. The first surgery was five days in the hospital and six weeks at home. The second was three days at the hospital and two weeks at home. Hopefully, this will just be overnight at the hospital and a day or two at home. I'm not too sure its going to be that simple. I have a feeling they're going to need to do some repair work in the lower left rod again. She's been complaining about it a lot recently. I'm hoping she just doesn't like feeling a bump there and she's not in pain. Of course, everything is harder to get done with our new insurance. Before if the doctor wanted x-rays, he sent her to the next room to get them and the results were available immediately. Now, I have to go to a special, approved office to get the x-rays. That means heading out of the city, go to the office, wait in line for our turn, get the x-rays by someone who doesn't know her like the techs at Hopkins do (she is a bit picky about how everything has to be done), waiting for the x-rays and bring then in the the next appointment instead of everything being done at once. While the costs are pretty good with this insurance, it requires a lot of pre-approvals (I can't get my glucometer strips without my doctor getting pre-approval. Seriously???), compromises on medicine and running around. I'll take it since it's the only option I have, but as annoying as my last insurance was at times (They made a lot of mistakes on approvals. I was constantly on the phone with them getting things resubmitted), everything was covered and convenient.