The last six weeks have flown by.  I was hoping to write more, but with the amount of appointments we have had, transitioning back to full-time school, and daily physio, it has been incredibly busy.  Ben had significant pain in his neck til about six weeks post-op. We think a nerve in his spine was compressed, and the pain at times was overwhelming.  This has now been eliminated and he only gets achy pain and fatigue now, which is much easier to deal with.

Then…back to Montreal again!  We left home Monday, and we returned home (today) in less than 48 hours.  We got to Ronald McDonald house just after 7 pm Monday night.  The highlight of Ben’s trip is staying here and cooking in the big commercial family kitchens.  Last time we didn’t really cook much because we didn’t have much time to get groceries and stuff.  This time, instead of wandering around looking for a grocery store (I got super lost last time in the middle of bone-chilling winter…note to Quebecois…don’t name your Grocery Stores – Metro – after the subway system – it’s super confusing.  So this time, I packed enough groceries (macaroni, beans, pop tarts – all the good stuff according to Ben) in my suitcase to get by…that’s right airport drug dogs…I packed butter.

We were in our appointment for about two minutes yesterday when Ben threw me completely under the bus and told them that I MADE HIM RUN IN THE STORE!!!  I was like….what….I had this weird feeling that he might be right, but I totally couldn’t remember what he was talking about.  Finally I remembered last week when I MADE HIM RUN IN THE STORM – not the store!  When I picked the kids up from school last week, it was crazy windy and raining those sharp, painful drops of rain on our faces.  I ran to the car to keep THE WINDS OF DEATH from blowing my children away.  When I looked back to see who survived, Ben had a mortified look in his eyes…”YOU MADE ME RUN” – he accused.  And I was like…’Oh…yeah – I did ….sorry…I just wanted you to live!’  Anyways, I forgot the incident entirely until Mr. I HAVE NO FAMILY LOYALTY pulled the rug out from under me when I least expected it.  See if I pack Kraft Dinner again.

So, we met with our surgeon, and it was a good news/bad news sort of day.  It seems like there is another surgery in our future, but we will wait at least a year for Ben’s bones to heal up a bit.  It was discouraging, but not at all unexpected.  I’ve been stretching those little bones for six weeks now, so I knew there were issues.  There are a few options for what the surgery will entail, but the gist is that another pizza wedge will be coming out.  Of course if I have my way, there will be a shim going in on the other side, but apparently the human skeleton is not like framing for drywall, so I guess we will see.  The good news is that Ben’s bones should heal faster than a teenagers, so a lot of things on our “we will do in a year” list have been bumped up to the fall (within reason).  For example – he can probably play indoor soccer, but he can’t have a drunken bench brawls.  I think that will be better for him and will leave him feeling less secluded.  Anyways, it was nice seeing all the staff at the hospital.  Ben and I took a taxi last night to the hospital again just to say hi to the night staff too.  It’s amazing how these people feel like family after our little journey together.

We will meet with our team again in six months to check Ben’s progress and see how things are going.