Big Victories and Small Mercies

After an agonizing wait, and many a confused phone call, I am happy to report a big bright shining light at the end of our dodgy u-bend tunnel! We've got a surgery date and we are packing our bags to go to London's Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital!

The plan is to move Boy Wonder's stoma site to iron out the kink in the pipe and improve the quality of his urine drainage, which hopefully will reduce his creatinine levels thus allowing us all to exhale once more. That's the plan - lets just keep everything crossed that it works!

While they're 'in there' - don't you just love it the way surgeons say that? 'While we're in there we'll take a look around' - you'd swear it was into your living room they were going, just to measure up for curtains like! While they're 'in there' they'll be measuring up his internal plumbing for matching fixtures and fittings with a view to a whole new interior 'look'. This 'look' will ideally include the latest in junior indoor conveniences like a new bladder!

The new bladder is a long way off but this is the first step - a bit like meeting with the architect to discuss drawing up the plans.  After their time 'in there' the team will then move on to the Ikea catalogue of internal plumbing - I'm imagining a sleek swedish affair with streamlined tubes and top-of-the-range catheters but then I've always had a thing for a well-designed interior!

So between now and the 29th of August  I will waver between relief and terror, I'm trying to keep the wheels on the wagon but I can already hear the back axel creaking. I will busy myself with preparations, logistics, lists and secondary lists - all in an effort to avoid thinking about what is actually going to happen: surgery in a new hospital, in another country. Boy Wonder has already had more surgery than I can count but it never gets any easier for me. If anything it gets harder.

I will keep my eyes on the prize and plan; that's what I do. In the meantime we have a big date with some gooey cake to celebrate a 9th birthday in style before we take off to start yet another chapter in this awfully big adventure.

Cheers,
Ann