Looking over the events that happened in James’ life over the past month and it looks like this will be a short post. He went on a couple of field trips for school, had another appointment at the UIC Craniofacial Clinic where we felt like we got sent to the principal’s office, and celebrated an anniversary.

School

Let’s start with school. Our minor league baseball team had two special “school days” events in May where they invited schools to come out to enjoy a baseball game at a discounted price. James’ class went on the 15th, and since Stacy didn’t have anything on her schedule, she was able to join them.

Thursday, May 23rd was the last day of his freshman year. I workout on Tuesday and Thursday mornings before I go to work, and I always make sure I say goodbye to James before he heads off to school. On this particular Thursday I hadn’t quite finished my workout yet, so I paused my workout to say goodbye. Stacy was taking his last day of 9th grade pictures before she wheeled him down to the bus, so I posed for one.

After school on the 23rd, his class had a goodbye picnic at the park next to the school for a classmate that was graduating. I was using up one of my vacation days, so Stacy, Maggie and I decided to stop by to surprise James and wish the girl the best in her future endeavors.

James had two weeks off and then started summer school last week. On their first day of summer school, they went on a field trip to a nearby lake.

On Monday they brought in some animals for the kids to learn about. James got to see an armadillo, some crested ducks, a rabbit, and a tortoise.

Spinal Fusion Anniversary

In addition to celebrating his last day of freshman year on the 23rd, he also celebrated the 5th anniversary of his spinal fusion.

That was one hell of a long surgery. Almost six hours. Six hours of us pacing around the waiting room, hoping and praying that he was going to be okay. And of course he was. He handled the surgery like a rock star. He did spent a full month in the hospital after the surgery, though; not from complications from the surgery, but because his digestive system took several weeks to wake up enough to digest his food. You can read the full story of the surgery and recovery in the Spinal Fusion Surgery post.

Oral Surgery Update

On June 7th we had another appointment with the doctors at the UIC Craniofacial Clinic to discuss James’ oral surgery. We thought we were going to further discuss the surgery and talk through some more of our concerns, but it started out feeling like we were being reprimanded. Apparently, they had a day in July reserved for the surgery, but since they didn’t hear back from us in a timely manner, they had to give that time slot to another patient. We were never notified of the surgery date and had no idea that they had something scheduled.

After we got that miscommunication cleared up, we further discussed our concerns about their surgical plan. We asked if just removing some teeth would provide enough additional room for James’ tongue, and unfortunately it won’t. His teeth aren’t the problem; it’s his narrow bottom jaw that needs to be widened to provide the room his tongue needs to lay flat.

Since they gave the July date to another patient, we had to wait to get a call from scheduling for another date for surgery. The earliest date they had available was in January. We don’t want him to miss too much school, so we opted to do the surgery at the end of May after the school year is over. For better or worse, we now have eleven months to mentally prepare for the surgery. We’re going to put our thoughts and concerns about the surgery in the back of our minds, but I know once we get into the new year, our anxiety is going to come rushing back to the surface.

I really wish we could get a second opinion, but we had a hard enough time trying to find just one place that would even consider doing the type of surgery that James needs. We had been to four different oral surgeons over the course of seven months last year, starting with the one that removed James remaining baby teeth in October of 2018. They either didn’t have an affiliation with a hospital to do an inpatient procedure or didn’t feel comfortable with performing oral surgery on James. UIC Craniofacial Clinic is the only place we were able to find that is willing (and capable) of doing the surgery on a kid like James.

Father’s Day

We had a nice Father’s Day with family. James and Stacy got me a tank top that says “Hot Dad Summer” that I intend to wear when I mow the lawn; and some accessories for the grill, which has become my favorite pastime.