Ben had a good weekend visiting with his dad and his sister. It is these little distractions that help make time pass a bit more quickly around here. Our weekdays actually go by fairly quickly, but our weekends seem endless. However, I was able to recharge a bit this weekend and spend some time with Hannah. We went to Juliette et Chocolat and had some chocolate fondue. The hot chocolate was so yummy that we ran back the next day to bring Benjamin one.
There is really not much happening medically with Benjamin right now. We continue to put on a half pound of traction each day. Today he is at 11 pounds of traction pulling on him 24 hours a day, but he doesn’t really seem to mind it. We will continue until we reach 15 or 16 pounds, which is about half of Ben’s weight – that’s right – 32 pounds of manliness in that little body. We had a major breakthrough in sleeping last Friday. After his initial surgery where they put back anchors in, Ben did not want to put ANY pressure on his back. However, after a week and a half it seemed to be healing well, so we decided to let him try to sleep sitting upright in his bed. Previously he slept on his side, which didn’t allow him to roll or move during the night. He would often wake up in pain during the night, and we would have to medicate him. Anyways, despite his hesitation, he had an awesome night sleep on Friday when he slept upright. The next morning he said “can I sleep like that every night?”, so that’s what we do. We have also weaned him off all medications now, so it seems we are adjusting well to all forms of hospital life.
We are eagerly awaiting our friend Amber’s surgery at MCH tomorrow. She has been cancelled on twice because of an equipment failure initially, and a lack of ICU beds, which has been pretty devastating to her and her mom.
