The Rainbow Connection

Ug. Blogger made the switch. This is so much more difficult on the iPad now. *Update: bought Blogsy. Am a real blogger now. Much easier from iPad. :D*

Anyways...things have improved since the last post - most things, anyways. We'll begin with the negative...

My brothers surgery, although successful in relieving the pressure on his brain, did not produce the biopsy of the tumour they were hoping for. He spent a week in hospital before being discharged for the weekend, and checked back in last Monday. His neurosurgeon really wanted a sample of the tumour, so they scheduled James for another surgery this past week. The sample of the tumour was recovered, but because of the second surgery, the pressure on his brain increased again, and now they have to put in a shunt. You can read more about this procedure here, if you're interested. So, a third surgery is imminent and my poor brother is bored out of his tree, sitting in a too-small hospital bed for his 6' 4" frame (Mum and I are on that one, don't worry). We are all visiting as much as we can, but for the most part he is just laying, watching tv, staring at the ceiling, and waiting.

So that's the bad news. Not really bad news, as a shunt is a fairly permanent solution to his issue, and the biopsy results have not been returned yet. We are all waiting on pins and needles for those.

The good news:

1. Dad recovered from HIS surgery just fine.

2. Turns out my arm wasn't broken, just a severe sprain with some ligament damage. Because I had it in a sling for so long, it's healed a bit...short, so I can't extend my arm. It aches constantly, so I start physiotherapy this week.

3. Charlie got used to not having me pick him up, and all of the super-helpful guests we had through the house.

4. Charlie's doing great, walking, CRAWLING, and getting into everything.

5. We got a date for Charlie's g-tube. You can read more about g-tubes here, if you're so inclined. We make the Big Switch on May 29th. I still don't know if it's for the best, but it will hopefully be easier and hopefully not permanent. This makes May a very busy month, with meetings at Sick Kids, prepping us in different ways.

6. We are getting our basement finished. Hurray!

It's been an exhausting two weeks. It's not even over for my mum yet, who is driving down to see my brother almost every day. There is a small, growing light at the end of our Medical Week of Nightmares, though, and hopefully it's upon us by next week's entry.

The Rainbow Connection - Kermit the Frog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSFLZ-MzIhM&feature=youtube_gdata_player