All done!

Isaac loves to say, "I all done." Also of note, "I not like this." Both of which we heard this morning, and while it breaks your heart to hear him say it - we were relieved to say, "Yes, you are all done."

We weren't sure what time Isaac was going to make it to the operating room this morning, as at 7am, we hadn't heard whether or not all of the doctors had made their way in to the hospital to meet our originally scheduled time. About 10 minutes later, two nurses from the operating room showed up to escort us down there. We quickly got Isaac his Valium so he would be much more relaxed and at ease. This has proven to work for him, keeps the anxiety levels down for him.

Isaac was delighted to see Dr. S and Buddy in the prep room - true signs that (1) he really likes his doctors and trusts them, and (2) he was under the influence!

Ryan and I were prepared for Dr. S to go ahead and close the incision, or, if things were not looking as healed as he wanted, we would have gone for yet another round. Luckily, Dr. S was impressed with what he saw, and was able to close the incision, after he cleaned it out again. Dr. S truly feels that we are going to be able to continue to treat the infection with long term antibiotics (6 months +). We met with Infectious Disease again, and that was their thought as well. There is dissension between the teams as to how long Isaac should stay on the antibiotic, and this is due to the fact that over time, the risk for the infection to come back decreases, but the only way to know for sure is to stop the antibiotics. From my understanding, an infection can live long term on foreign instruments that are in the body, such as his rods, so that is where the real risk would lie.

As most people know - today was the second round of snow storms we received in the last week. The first of which was on Thursday (which was surgery day #3), and then today. Both of these surgeries/procedures would have been bumped, had we not been inpatient at CMH, due to weather. We were one of only 9 scheduled OR cases today, and Dr S's only OR case.

God knows what he is doing - and reminds us of that. We had the option of using a long term wound vac and going home after surgery #2, but after all of the discussions, it was in Isaac's best interest to proceed the way we did. By staying here, he received all of the treatments he did, and will get to go home with no tubes, no drain, no wound vac, no nuthin!

If all goes as planned, we will be home on Thursday evening. We can't wait! - Actually, when Isaac woke up from anesthesia, and his subsequent nap, he asked (in his squeaky post op voice), "my back all better, we take this out (points to IV), take this off (points to O2 sensor), get in my car, go to Iz's house, and play with Eli."

Melt.my.heart.