Surgery Travels

As mentioned in the last post, we traveled to Virginia for surgery on Makin's palate. He has had a fistula (fancy word for hole in his palate) pretty much since he had his last palate repair at age 1. We are very hopeful this will be the last palate repair, but there are no guarantees. We thought Dr. Magee might want to repair his nose as well, because he doesn't get a lot of air on one side, but he said he would prefer to wait a couple more years, so that Makin is older. Hopefully it will ONLY be the nose then, no palate involved.

We decided a hotel stay was best for this trip for several reasons. Brad found us some amazing off-season rates for an oceanfront room. It was a blessing in many ways. While we didn't really want to consider this trip a vacation, we opted to try and have a little fun as long as we were flying all the way there. I'm so thankful Brad decided it was important to stay at the ocean. The sunrises and sunsets and easy beach access was absolutely what we needed while Makin was recovering.

We arrived when it was already dark, and the kids were already ecstatic to just see the ocean in the dark, but this is their first glimpse the next morning.

We then got to visit with the Bonfiglio family, where they even made us brunch and we followed it up with catching most of Chase's baseball game. How I managed not to take a single picture of that morning I'll never know! We enjoyed catching up!

We then headed to the store to prepare for the mush diet. Yogurts, mashed potatoes and oatmeal were among a few ideas. And yes, I knew I would need some wine. ;)

Monday we drove down to North Carolina to visit the Wright Brother's Museum. I was so pumped about this. What better field trip for a little boy!? Well, that poor little boy just so happened to be sick on Monday. :( We started driving hoping that it was just some allergies, but he was definitely not himself that day. When we arrived, he decided to take a nap in the backseat, so Lorelei and I headed out to enjoy the museum. Thankfully the power nap helped him enough he could venture out and check out a few things, but he was definitly not 100%. Oh and have I mentioned doctors don't like their patients to get sick right before surgery!?!? Yes this mom and dad were stressin'.

But for the fun part...oh my goodness this was a great field trip. I didn't remember that much about the Wright Brothers. Thankfully I found an amazing book to read the kids and Brad and I learned a lot along with them. These men have an amazing story.

Lorelei and I sat through two presentations, this was our first, where the ranger told us a lot about the history (very similar to the book). This picture is her holding up a sample of one of the kites they made, one of many things they did doing their "homework" eventually leading to the first flight.

Lorelei in front of Kill Devil Hill. This is where they would practice hang gliding.

My favorite part...There is a rock where the first flight started from, then it marks each attempt and how far they got. (These flights were all the same day...not sure if that is obvious or not.) What a lesson. Keep trying. It won't be easy to do something extraordinary! Work ethic...so many lessons. Along with how fair they were. You will have to look closely to see, but the brothers also took turns flying. A coin toss decided who would go first. So many things to love about this. My apologies for an abundance in pictures! :)

(A sweet couple offered to take L and my's picture, so apparently with all that excitement and Makin and Brad coming to meet us I totally forgot to get the 4th/last first fight marker without people in it!)

Thumbs up for feeling good enough to join the field trip!

The kids are standing at the starting point. If you look really far you can see all four stone markers of the flights.

Back inside to check out the replica of the first airplane. 

(The actual plane is in a museum in Washington DC.)

Then the lady at the front desk told us to head out to a plane the kids could climb on until we waited for the next ranger talk, so that Brad and Makin could hear it.

The second ranger talk was great and Brad loved hearing it. It was a different speaker and he was a lot more technical so that was a great fit and I learned new things too! I'm so thankful we had the chance to take this little adventure on our trip.

Then, back to reality the next day. A morning full of meeting with doctors. 5 to be exact. 

Morning. Full. Thankfully I knew it would be coming so we had lots to keep us busy.

We got the go-ahead to do the surgery as Makin was feeling "ok" and had no temperature.

You may not be able to tell but we had some cold and rainy weather for the first half of our visit. So this afternoon after the appointments was the first time we ventured down to the sand. It was way too cold for swimming suits, but with Lorelei it doesn't really matter, she is going to get soaked either way. I was so thankful we had this chance, as Makin did not feel up to going to the beach any of the days after his surgery. And you know how I am about beach pictures...yes its going to be a long post.

This girl loves her beach time, no matter how cold it is.

This guy loves his beach time too...however he does not love cold, wet, sandy clothes. :)

We wrapped up our day eating pizza and playing "Guess Who" so it was a really great evening.

Sunrise on surgery day.

Then we had an awesome moment on a glum morning...seeing dolphins! :)

Yes dolphins at sunrise, doesn't get much better.

We then drove Lorelei to Melissa's house to spend the day. Her kids actually had off from school for Veteran's Day, so that worked out well. Melissa took them on a hike and they even got to rake leaves.

I really wrestled with what I felt comfortable taking pictures of for Makin's surgery. Part of me wants to be able to capture the moments and part of me doesn't want to take any. So, I took just a few. I think its because there are so many amazing doctors and nurses you encounter, you just wish you could capture those amazing people. They have such an important job. My favorite was our first nurse of the day. It is a given that they are good with children, but he was definitely special. The gal in the black shirt works with the kids to help them prepare for surgery. She showed Makin the mask they would use to help him fall asleep, and showed him pictures of what the surgery room looked like. They also put hospital bracelets with M's name on them to go on his stuffed animals that would go with him into surgery. This isn't the sea horse's first hospital stay! Then M and Brad stayed busy playing Mario Cart on the wii. What a great distraction during all that waiting. They ended up giving Makin sleepy medicine while he was still sitting with us, so he didn't have a hard time leaving when it was time for surgery.

Dr. Magee said Makin has a difficult palate to repair and there was lots of packing that had to stay in Makin's mouth until he cut it out on Friday. That made poor M miserable and he would hardly even drink anything. We spent the night in the hospital (which of course means half of the next day) and I was so thankful he had the IV so he was not getting dehydrated. We also learned that Makin is a "light weight" when it comes to waking up from anesthesia, so we will probably always have a hospital stay after surgery. The nurse did not feel great sending him home that night when he was still so sleepy.

While I was dealing with the less-than-fun hospital morning tasks the next day, Brad and Lorelei enjoyed The Nauticus museum in Norfolk. It was great for them to get some one-on-one time together. She even pet a shark!

That feeling of being soooo ready to get out of the hospital.

This is Makin waiting for Brad to come around and pick us up.

This is also the last you will see of this guy for a bit. All he wanted to do Thursday and Friday was sleep or watch T.V. It was challenge to get him to eat anything, even after the packing was cut out of his palate. He didn't want to be on any pain meds following and refused to take them. Brad snuck one dose in some apple juice Thursday night, but other than that we only wrestled with him to take the antibiotics. His poor body just needed lots of sleep.

So, you have one child who just wants to sleep the day away and one who is ready to play. This is when you are extremely thankful you are staying on the oceanfront. Brad and I tag teamed and it worked out wonderfully.

Friday morning we headed to the Operation Smile building. Dr. Magee is one of founders of Operation Smile and was working from there that day, so we headed there to get the packing cut out. Brad and Lorelei wandered around the building while I sat with a tired boy on my lap while we waited for Dr. Magee. This is when Brad got a chance to take some pictures. After getting the packing cut out, Dr. Magee commented how impressed he was about how well Makin laid there while he did that.

We then learned that not only were we on the mush diet, but in order to get an even better chance at keeping the palate closed up, Dr. Magee thought we needed to do the PUREE diet for 2 weeks. No mashed potatoes until Thanksgiving! (We will get more into that on another post...)

We did get a short tour and I was amazed at how much they use the facility to teach. They take students on almost every trip, I believe starting at junior high level. They are doing amazing things.

(Pictures Brad took. The boxes are the supplies they will take to other countries.)

One more chilly beach afternoon for Miss L. She was probably the only one out with a swim suit on.

Peek of the sun before we left for the airport the next day.

We debated driving this trip. After lugging a 40ish pound little boy around three airports...I'm thinking that may have been a good idea. We dropped off the rental car, got about 10 feet away and Makin said soooo sweetly, "I think I'm out of gas...." Phew. Long travel day for all of us!

My other main concern was being able to have full tummies at the airports. Never have I been so happy to see a frozen yogurt stand near our terminal. Who knew? I have never even thought about having frozen yogurt while flying... At this point Makin still had hardly any appetite, but it was good for the rest of us.

I'll do a post-surgery update sometime soon!