Home

  We left the hospital at 5:00. Ari's recovery went really well and we were out of there just over 24 hours after the surgery ended. Traffic was of course horrible and it took us an hours to get the 10 miles home. We have a bunch of pain killers for her to take based on her pain level, but we've only rarely ever had to give her anything too powerful and hopefully it'll be that we this time as well.

Ari ready to head home, although she did only get to watch Frozen 4 times while we were there. Of course she watched Tangled a few times as well.

We could see the Inner Harbor from our room (the glass triangle near the top right is the aquarium).

In a Room and Resting.

Surgery took a little under 2 hours. We were able to see her by 2:00. By 3:00 we were in a room in 9 North of the children's hospital building. They had to replace 2 bolts on her hardware which had come loose and were pushing against her back. We were told that went well but we haven't talked to her doctor yet. We'll get the details when we do.
   She has been doing pretty well other than having a bad reaction to the anestesia and has gotten sick three times, even with her normal anti-nausea medication. That's one of three things we need to get have happen before we can leave. Get rid of the nausea, get her to eat, get her to go to the bathroom and get her to sit up. Four things. One of four things we need to get her to do.
   I'll be sleeping in the room with her tonight. Tomorrow the hospital said we can bring Lily up to see her. Hopefully we can get things moving along. We have a change of getting her home tomorrow if everything goes well. If not, she'll be going home Friday.

Starting

Just got the call that they are starting the surgery. We went back around 11:30 and I waited with her again while they put her under. This is the 8th time I've seen this and it never gets any easier. We should get another couple of updates before the surgery is done.

Starting the Day

   We were up at 6 this morning. I only got a few hours sleep, but I'll have plenty of time to sleep after Ari gets into a room. Ari was up in time to watch one show and get dressed. We were on our way by 7. The drive wasn't  bad and we were parked by 7:40. We got checked in and waited for a while. There were a few interesting things going on. Mostly involving the families waiting in the waiting area. One even made a few under their breath comments about us not letting Ari lift some of the heavier chairs. People need to leave well enough alone. The last thing we need is for Ari's hardware to come loose any more than it already is.
   Right now we're in the pre op area. Ari is dressed and waiting for the doctors. We have a few different groups to meet with before surgery starts. We've seem Dr Ain's associate so far. Surgery is scheduled to start at 10, but we are usually done with all the prep an hour or so before. It's 20 minutes before and they are definitely not ready. Hopefully everything went well with Dr Ain's previous surgery.
   There will be some repair work this time around. A bolt came loose and needs to be fixed. This will add a little time to the surgery. I'll post here once everything gets started and we're back in the waiting area.

Hospital Prep

   After getting in one last weekend at Busch Gardens, we're getting ready for Ari's next surgery. It will be at 10:00am on July 30th (tomorrow). The doctor called and told us that some of her hardware has come loose again which is not a surprise for us really. We can see a good sized bump on her back and that usually means something is loose. This is the third time this has happened. This is always a possibility with this procedure and her bones don't seem to handle all the hardware as well as they hoped which is the best explanation they have for right now. The doctor explained it much more that that, but that's just my one sentence summary of the whole thing.
   We get to the hospital around 8:00 tomorrow morning. She'll probably head back around 9 to 9:30 and I'll take her back to be put under as usual. Surgery should start around 10 and it'll likely be a few hours since there are repairs involved this time around. Hopefully it won't be too much longer than that. The original surgery was around 8 hours. The second was around 4 hours. Most since then have been 2 hours or less. I'm guessing around three hours this time. And for those wondering, this is back surgery number 6 of somewhere around 20 total. A few more years and she'll be half way through all of this.
   Tonight we will have our usual pre hospital routine. Ari gets to pick out a restaurant and she'll get to stay up later then usual. She can't eat after midnight so we let her stay up a little later and have some snacks before going to bed. Then we need to have her up by 6 and be out the door by 7. It's only about 10 miles away, but with traffic it'll be at least 30 minutes to get to the parking garage. Probably more. I'll be keeping thinks up to date here as usual and maybe I'll get around to posting all our summer vacation pictures over the 2-3 days I'm sitting in the hospital room with Ari. Please keep her in your prayers and pray for the hardware to stay in place this time.