Moving forward…

Today has been a full day.  We got up early to take Josiah in for his PET scan.  It was in the main hospital, but thankfully they had a room with some kid movies in it for us to hang out in.  We had to wait about an hour for the radioactive glucose to go through Josiah’s system to be detected during the scan.  One of our favorite anesthesiologists was there this morning, which was nice to have the familiar face.  Josiah definitely had a bit of a hard time grasping the different location &  the fact that they were having to put his tuby in.  It must be hard to understand when he’s been out of that mode for a couple of weeks and then to get thrown back into it.

When they took Josiah in for the scan, they told us that they would be sending him over to the Children’s Hospital to recover.  That made me nervous because sometimes he wakes up pretty quickly from his sedation and isn’t always very happy, as some of you have heard about.  So, we had to get the car from the Main Hospital valet so Tony could drop me off at Children’s on his way to get to work.  Then, I went into Radiology recovery… which it turns out is not where they were sending him.  So, I had to go from the first to the third floor where the surgery recovery is.  They sent him there because of the anesthesia.  The lady in the main lobby couldn’t find Josiah’s name on her charts, so it took about ten minutes to figure out where my child was.  All the while, I was thinking that he was going to be screaming his head off somewhere in the caverns of recovery.  Apparently not, though, because once we got it all squared away, I had to wait about 30 minutes before they called for me.  I could hear him calling for me when I got close to him, but he actually did really good waking up.  The first thing he told me was that he wanted to go home.  Then, in the process of getting him checked out and leaving the hospital, he ate two bananas.  

We had a hard afternoon when I tried to get the children down for naps.  Josiah did not want to lay down and threw one of the biggest fits I’ve seen from him.  Anastasia felt the same way, it seems.  So, I finally got Josiah to lay down quietly and had to take Anastasia downstairs so she wouldn’t wake up the boys.  She finally went to sleep when Josiah woke up.  That has to be one of the most hard challenges of a mom because it equals no quiet down time during the day.

In the meantime, I was also getting messages from the surgeon’s office and from Tony about the plans for Monday.  In the surgeon’s mind, he would be doing surgery no matter what the scan results showed.  However, Tony & I really wanted to hear the report before they did any surgery on Josiah.  They said that the surgeon would go over it with us on Monday morning before surgery, but that they probably wouldn’t hear anything today.

A little before 5:00, they did call us with a preliminary report that the tumors are still in his lungs.  They didn’t say whether or not it showed that they were viable or scar tissue.  Tony & I discussed the option of postponing the surgery, but it didn’t seem to have many guaranteed benefits.  So, here we go.

Monday morning, we have to be at the hospital at 6 a.m. for a 7:30 surgery time.  I know some of this will be a little repetitive, but I want to make sure I get it all down.  The surgeon will make a small incision on Josiah’s right side (the only side without a scar at this point) and use some type of scope/tool to shrink the air cyst and to remove some of the tumor masses that are close to the edge of Josiah’s lungs.  We are praying that the surgeon won’t find anything when he gets in there or that what he does find will be simple to deal with… and NO complications (need for larger incision, bleeding, lung collapse, etc.).

Please pray for peace over our family.  Anastasia is having a hard week of teething and separation anxiety.  Luca is feeling shuffled around and needs some Mommy & Papi time.  Josiah isn’t too thrilled about doing more hospital stuff, even though it’s hard for him to verbalize all of that… it’s showing in his actions.  Tony & I are feeling the weight of caring for each child, taking care of work & child care details, fighting off allergy/cold symptoms and trying to move forward with faith that God is truly in control and we can trust Him with our lives & the lives of our children.

I did have a wonderful evening out with friends at SATCO, one of my favorite Nashville hang-outs.  I’m up way too late, but I wanted to get this all out while I had a quiet house.  On that note, please be praying for rest for all of us as well.

“Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”  Proverbs 3:5-6