First Hurdle Cleared

If someone would have told me a week ago that we would be where we are at today, I would have never believed them! I can say that Jack has recovered. He is down to 1 pain medication twice a day and that seems to be managing any pain he has. His attitude is back to being very positive. He's entertaining us with his never-ending commentary on life in a wheelchair. "I'd love to help you out mom, but in case you haven't noticed, I'm in this wheelchair." He's immersed himself in legos (thank you to all who have sent legos!!!) and art projects. We all relaxed a bit and had a great weekend. Jon's parents came down Sunday and gave Jon and I a break for a couple hours. It was nice to get away and we went all crazy and went to Lowe's and Sam's Club. So, a big thank you to them for coming to visit!

Tomorrow Jon goes back to work. I know he’s sad to be leaving us, but I am confident that we will all be fine! He’s an amazing father and husband, and he took care of ALL of us through the worst of the days. But, it’s time for life to go back to normal…..so get to work Jon!

I truly believe that there will be many blessings that will come out of this process. One thing we have learned these past 10 days is that we are truly loved by so many people! To all of you that called, texted, emailed, followed our blog, made meals, sent cards, gifts, prayers…words can not express how thankful we are. We have had people reach out to us from the east coast to the west coast…from Canada to Florida! It is absolutely overwhelming, but what a blessing to come out of all of this. People we haven’t talked to in years and years and years have tracked us down to offer support. So thank you thank you thank you to all of you! To my family, you guys are the best. You have rallied around Jack and took care of all of us during all the rough times. I don’t know how we could do it without you, and I know that Jack wouldn’t be half the kid he is if it weren’t for you.

Our next step is to start the lengthenings. We see Dr. Kogan on Thursday and she’ll walk us through how to do it. I know Jack well enough to say that after Thursday he will happily educate anyone on an Ilizarov fixator and give a complete demonstration on how to do the actual lengthening. We will turn the fixator 1 mm a day. We’re hoping to lengthen 5 cm, so if everything goes perfectly it’ll take 50 days for the lengthening. And the good thing about the lengthenings is that they should be pain-free. During that time, he is non-weight bearing. He can swim in chlorinated water and will be in physical therapy at least twice a week and have weekly doctor's appointments for xrays to watch the bone grow. It’ll be an adventure…that I am sure of!

So…..for now, we’re taking it day by day. I will keep updating our blog very regularly. It’s a great way to keep everyone informed and it’s been very therapeutic for me to organize my thoughts each night. We originally started this blog to put our story out there….in hopes that there’s a family in the position that we were in 6 years ago that can find our blog and gets answers and reassurance. We’ve never let Jack be defined by his medical limitations and it was hard during that week to have them so “in our face.” It’s nice to have that past us and have our “Just Jack” back, good as new.