Back to School

  We did end up coming home early Thursday afternoon. This was our quickest hospital stay yet. Everything went as well as we could have hoped. Ari spend Thursday resting and she did get up a few times and even used the stairs with a minimal amount of help.
  Friday was a long day, but Ari continued to improve. I worked from home most of the day as Amanda had to do some errands in the morning. Ari was up and moving fairly well, with just a little of the stronger meds. By Friday night she was off of the strongest of the meds completely and she was on just Tylenol by Saturday afternoon. We even had Ari out spending her Tooth Fairy money (plus a little more added in for doing to well at the hospital) and she bought a Barbie doll with a puppy. She was looking for a newer Barbie from the movie she was watching in the hospital ("Barbie in Princess Power") but they were out of that one. She was still really happy with this one.
  Saturday was the Easter Egg hunt as church. Ari was well enough to participate and get at least a few eggs. Lily got quite a few so they just split the prizes. Lily took the chocolate and Ari took the toys.
   Sunday I took the girls over to the B&O Railroad Museum. With the help of a stroller, we spent three hours over there at which point I had to convince the girls it was time to head home. They collected all of the stamps they have spread out around the museum. If you get all of the stamps you get a prize. Ari got tokens for the merry-go-round and Lily got a little wooden game. They spent some time at the playground there and in the kids dress-up/toy area and I even got to look at a train every now and then. Both girls were exhausted and took a short nap before dinner. Lily actually slept through most of dinner. Afterwards we got Ari back into shape for school. We took off the last of the stickers left on her from surgery (a good amount of screaming), washed her hair (a little less screaming, but still a good amount), cleaned her fingernails (a lot of screaming) and generally freshened her up (no baths allowed yet).
  Today she is back at school. So far, so good. We'll see how her day goes but there haven't been any phone calls and she is supplied with medicine at school so hopefully just keeping her on Tylenol throughout the day will be enough to get her through the day without too much pain.

Checking Off All the Boxes

Ari has checked off most of the things in the list she need to do to go home. She's up and in a seat. She's eating and has gone to the bathroom. If we can keep her pain levels down and keep her food in her (she got sick once) then they'll start the paperwork soon.
   As for me I've gotten about 7 hours of sleep over the past two nights so I'm going to rest.

Tooth Fairy Documentation

In Post-Op

The surgery is done. Everything went just as planned and she got done a little early. She's starting to come out of the anesthesia and hopefully we'll move to a room soon.
  On a side note she had a loose tooth going in. They pulled it and the tooth fairy visited while she was out. We now have her tooth in a jar.

Started

  I took Ari back around 7:30. She's out at this point and we're just waiting for the call to tell us they started. It should only be about 2 hours from then.

Too Early

It 5:15 am and we're waiting for check-in to start. That'll be at 5:30. Ari is awake enough to stare at the TV, but I had to carry her most of the way here from the car. She's doing really well all things considered.

17 Hours to Go

   In just under 17 hours we will be checking in for Ari's next surgery. She's getting very nervous as she really understands what is going on at this point. She had one of her worst days of the year at school yesterday. Complete meltdown until around lunch time. Today we have her is a little better frame of mind. We're planning on going to Applebees after work to get dinner and see the balloon man. Then Mom-mom Wood will be over so she can watch Lily tomorrow. Check-in at the hospital is at 5:30AM. Surgery is at 7:30. So far no calls to push it back or anything, so our plan is to head into the city around 5:00AM. Maybe a little earlier as there is major construction on I95 through most of Baltimore.
   Her pre-op went well as far as all the doctor visits went. Her hardware looks good for the first time since she's had it put in. Nothing is coming loose and everything is working as expected. Ari's body has not been playing nice with all the hardware and some of the things that have happened with it have forced her doctor to get rather creative to keep it all in place. He was joking around during the pre-op about how "...it only took 47 tries but we finally got it right." He's a great doctor and Ari loves him. He obviously doesn't take himself too seriously and has told us exactly what has been going on with all of these hardware problems, which are not unheard of, but still extremely frustrating. Overall though it means this should be a really quick adjustment and hopefully a fast recovery and a small incision.
   This has been one of the busiest years of our lives and none of it good. I can't even get in to most of it but within the next few months our lives might look very different than they do now. I have a feeling we'll be leaving Maryland behind and finding somewhere better to live. Whether that is back to NJ, over to PA or somewhere else entirely I'm not sure. Maryland is just making it very hard to continue to live here.
   As usual, I'll post all of Ari's updates here, starting at around 5:30 tomorrow morning. It's been good to have a place to go back and look over all that's happened with our family over the past few years. I'm glad I started this, even if there are quite a few rough time to go back and look at.

Countdown

   Unfortunately the countdown has begun. In less that a week Ari will have her next surgery. At least it will mean one more down (with approx 10 more to go). This will be surgery number 7 for her back. We looked in to some newer technology which is supposed to cut down on the number of surgeries needed, but after some back and forth with the doctors, they determined that she is not eligible for it since her curve is too large. So, as of today this is still the best way of handling her back issues. I just hope that eventually she understands why she needs to go through with all this.

Starting the prep for the next surgery

We have Ari's next surgery date. Next week we go in for the pre-op. I'll be taking the day off from work as Ari is never in a good state of mind after getting poked and prodded all day. The blood work is always the worst part... We have to check in for her surgery at 5:30 AM for a 7:30 start time. It'll be hard, but it's much better than an 11:00 start time since Ari can't eat before hand. She has a loose tooth this time around which we need to let them know about. She's lost one already (the trademark Evans crooked bottom front tooth) and this will be the other bottom front tooth. They'll likely have to pull it after they put her under.
   I do need to get better at keeping up on these updates. I have a few I wanted to write, but life has not cooperated. At all. If I get some time I'd like to at least write about our first trip to Busch Gardens Christmastown. It was a wonderful weekend surrounded by horrible, life altering events. I'll stick to the trip in the post though. No one needs to remember the rest of it.