Big Week Ahead...

Gotta start the blog with a cute picture right??

Hello everyone!  Next week is Thanksgiving but that's not why it will be a big week for us, it is finally the week we head to St. Louis to meet with one of the SDR doctors and with the Pediatric Opthamologist and Logie is scheduled for his eye surgery!!

As I may have mentioned in the past, Logan's eyes have been a huge puzzle for not only us but also for every doctor that has seen him.  He has been diagnosed with Strabismus where his eyes will sometimes cross and come in alternating between both left and right but more often the right side.  He has Ptosis of the eye where his left eyelid can sometime droop down and then at other times it huge.  The doctors all say that they think he can see but at times he will alternate which eye he is looking out of so how far he can see or how well is still a huge mystery to us and other times he just rolls his eyes up and around and we don't know what is going on.   We have also believed for a while now that there are some issues with his depth perception (doesn't like stacking blocks, etc), this in turn we feel can cause other issues such as balance and possibly even making him learn how to walk harder.   They always said we would have to wait until he can tell us, and although he can talk some now not sure he would be able to give us too many details of what he is or isn't seeing and before he becomes too accustomed to the sight he has and his brain starts correcting for it we decided we needed to get it fixed.

We are going to see Dr. Lawrence Tychsen who specializes in kids with CP and has studied the many eye disorders that come with it.  We had first heard about him at the first CP conference that we went to with Dr. Jan and he is her go to eye guy for all of her CP warriors.  Everyone keeps asking me what kind of surgery he is getting or what will they be doing but we don't exactly know yet, we have to go in for a bunch of tests on Monday afternoon which based on those tests will determine what surgery he will have.  There are 12 different eye muscles that they will possibly be operating on, which 12 are still TBD.  Based on the records we have sent over that Dr. Tychsen reviewed, he does believe we will need surgery of some sort so...here we are!

On top of surgery, since we are already in St. Louis we set up an appointment on Monday morning with  Dr. Parks who is the leading surgeon for SDR (Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy) which is the back surgery that goes into the spine and can cut out the nerves causing the spasticity in his legs.  This is a surgery we have known for a while we will be doing and is a huge surgery, 3 days of not moving afterwards and then 5 months+ of 5 days / week PT, but we have heard great results and stories from others that have completed it.  We will be meeting with Dr. Parks to have him assess Logan and see if he would be a good fit for the surgery.  We will most likely be doing the surgery next summer but wanted to meet the Dr. while we were in town to get his thoughts.  So needless to say Monday will be a long day for our little man, prayers would be appreciated that he can make it through in good spirits.

So Mommy, Daddy and Logie head out to St. Louis on Sunday afternoon, have our appointments all day Monday, surgery Tuesday and then we will be flying back with the 90M other people on Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  Don't think we will get too much sightseeing in on this trip but that of course is not the purpose, all fingers are crossed that this may help solve some issues that Logie has been fighting with for a while.  Its a bit of a running joke around here but we all like to kid around and say "As soon as his eyes are fixed everything will be better, he will start walking and talking", we may be a little optimistic but hey its always best to keep your hopes up and think positively!

So...this is my call out to all our prayer warriors out there to get your prayers going that we have a safe trip, good appointments and that our surgery goes off without a hitch and makes life a little easier for our little buddy. Thanks again to everyone for all your love and support always, we couldn't do it without our support network!!

Now...enough with all these words...how about some cute pictures of this kiddo and possibly some of the last ones without glasses (as I am about 95% sure they are going to put him in some after this surgery)!!

Our little Monster!!

He LOVES the big Teddy at Costco, too bad our house isn't big enough for him!

Well, here is a pic with glasses but guessing his may be a little different!!  ;)

We can never get this kid in a hat and he is obsessed with selfies these days so we had to get a pic!