After frantically wraping up school, we drove this morning to Seattle. Now I am in a waiting room waiting for my pre-op appointment. Tomorrow, they will fuse and rod my spine.

People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening

Often I am asked how I feel about my strange predicament.  My usual response is that I just want to get this resolved.  To be honest, I am getting really tired of the austere walls of Doctor's offices. But until it ends, I do as the song says, "the bad in the world is hard to hear when in your ear a banana cheers".  Listen to the song. Just do it.

02_Put_a_Banana_In_Your_Ear.mp3

(download)

Click here to download:

02_Put_a_Banana_In_Your_Ear.mp3 (2.47 MB)

So I realized the other day that I hadn't posted in months so I will attempted to catch everyone up. 

It is good for a man to bear the yoke 

while he is young.

-Lamentations 3:27

Basically, I recovered quite well.  The back pain went back to normal and so did life. For awhile.  Here comes the interesting part, as I mentioned in my previous posts, I have kyphosis (my spine curves in and out).  Previous to the surgery, I had a 60 degree curve, when we met with the doctors at Shriner's, the curve had progressed to 80.1 degrees. The doctor said that corrective surgery would be required to stop and/or correct the condition.  So, that leads me to my next point, the surgery that Dr. Ling preformed turned out strangely.  According to him, once I was cut open, I didn't actually have a split spinal cord among other things.  After that endeavor, Dr. Ling recommended me to a Dr. Kit Song. Dr. Song works at Seattle Children's.

Tomorrow we are be driving cross-state to visit Seattle Children's and our relatives.  I'll post more frequently and possibly with pictures. In color too! 

-Travis 

For all of you people that insist on knowing what I have been up to for the last few days, here’s a quick rundown:  I have been at home playing video games and doing homework.  Because they cut into my spinal cord, I am at high risk for infectious things like Spinal Meningitis (never heard of it, but apparently it’s bad…).  So I am not allowed to go into any public places, i.e. schools, grocery stores, janitor’s closets, and basketball games.   So while all my friends on Facebook complain about going to school and homework, I just laugh (for now…). 

            I just wanted to give a big thank you to all of the families and friends that surrounded us and all of your prayers.  I hope to be back in school by next Monday.

-Travis

    Wednesday in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit was, I hoped, going to be slightly different than Tuesday.  After spending all Tuesday lying flat on my back, I was looking forward to being able to sit up. Unfortunately, that didn't happen till much later. 

At about 8am, Dr. Ling poked in and asked me how I was doing. After answering a few of his questions, his nurse came in and removed my bandages. It bothered me that I was still unable to see what my wound looked like or even how big the incision was.  Breakfast consisted of strawberry flavored gelatin which I carefully spooned in to my mouth (most of it ended up in my bed).  My parents arrived at my room just after Dr. Ling left.

I figured out that if I held my breath long enough, the machine that was monitoring various things on my body would begin to beep and flash causing the nurses to come and ask if I was having trouble breathing. I would answer no and they would look at the machine and then leave.  Also, if I flicked my fingers rapidly on the heart rate sensor that was attached to my other hand, I could reach a heart rate of 99 beats per minute.  This also drove the nurses crazy. 

Later I turned my attention to the TV which our good friend Fred had fixed the night before.  Since there was no quality programming, I left it on at the “New Parents” channel, in Spanish.  When my Dad came back and heard the TV yammering in a foreign language, he asked if it would be bettering Korean (our satellite radio has a Korean talk station an it really annoys my Dad.). We both laughed at his comment and I said Spanish was just great.  About noon, the nurse finally came in and raised the bed 30 degrees.  Finally! I could see more than just foam ceiling panels! 

            After a lunch of jello, (this time it was orange!) I smiled as visitors came and chatted with me.  My Dad brought my computer so I could write this blog as it happened, but if you read my first post, you would know that it is pretty difficult to charge a computer with a printer cable.  A friend of ours, Jenifer, came and brought us a HUGE bag of snacks and drinks for us to eat.  The Story’s care group compiled all of this so we wouldn’t starve on hospital food. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to eat solid foods L.   

            At about 4pm, Mrs. White showed up with Jacob.  Being one of my best friends, it was great to see Jacob.  He told me all that had happened at school while I was gone for the last two days.  Being missing for only two days, ther really wasn’t much going on.  We sat in the room and watched SpongeBob while our parents chatted. 

            After eating a solid lasagna dinner (and keeping it down), they cranked the bed all the way up to about 80 degrees, comfortable sitting level.  The nurses did some final vital signs and unplugged a couple of cords from the machines.  I was ready to be transported.

            The transporters arrived in mini ambulance. It was about the size of an oversized golf cart. (Okay, maybe I’m going a little far…) No, It was just to nurses that pushed my bed to the Oncology Unit (Cancer Unit). Why the Cancer ward?  Cleanliness.  When the doctors have been playing inside your nerves, you are pretty susceptible to bacteria. So I got a sweet room for the night. 

            So hopefully, this indepth enough for your certain people.

- Travis

I apologize for not being able to post on Tuesday or Wednesday.  I would have but there were two things keeping me from doing so, 1) The Wi-Fi doesn’t come in very well in the ICU, and 2) My brother brought me a printer cable instead of my laptop cable.  So here is the brief summary of those two days.

Tuesday:

Groggily, I fell out of bed; my clock read 5:03am.  To wake me up, I began chewing gum.  Once we were there, our friends Greg and Richie showed up.  In the back room, they prepped me for the surgery.  I almost ruined the entire thing, here’s how: We received a letter a week or so before the surgery with important pre-operation information. One the rules required that I not eat or drink after midnight the night before.  And I didn’t eat or drink, least, I didn’t think so. Apparently, gum is considered a food.  I mean I figured if you didn’t swallow it, it wasn’t food. Am I right?  So after a lot of watching nurses run around and place calls, the anesthesiologist came in and gave the verdict, “It would be okay, you might just wake up in the middle of the operation”.   I was not amused.

 Later, I woke up in different room asking what time it was over and over.  Then I went out again.  When I opened my eyes, I was in a room with little light.  All around me, machines were beeping and I felt a sharp burning in my back. The rest of my day was spent answering various nurses’ questions and trying to smile and understand what my guests were talking about.  I spent all day laying flat on my back.  

So I know I was supposed to get to Wednesday and all, but I think this is enough to not bore you yet.

-Travis

It is 10:02pm the night before my surgery.  I decided to share my thoughts with the world.  When asked why I’m having surgery, I sigh and tell them that this might be awhile.  To start, about two years ago while at the beach, my mom noticed I was walking oddly.  When we returned to home, we saw my endocrinologist. Wait what is an endocrinologist (en-doh-kruh-nol-uh-jest)? OK, I go back a little farther.  In 3^rd grade, I started seeing an endocrinologist because I am growth hormone deficient.  So, due do this, I take an injection daily. Getting back on track, the doctor thought it might have to do with my hips and/or back. He recommended us to the Shriners Hospital.  There I met Doctor Tompkins.  After a couple of x-rays, we determined I had kyphosis among other things (the fact that my spell checker doesn’t recognize “kyphosis” tells you something”.  After monitoring this for 2 years, my condition worsened severely.  The doc said that corrective surgery was required.  But before this happened, he wanted to get an MRI to check for anything odd.  Well turned out that I was one of the special cases with odd things, like holes in my spinal cord and a stretched spinal cord with two tails. Since Shriners didn’t have a neurosurgeon, I was sent to Dr. Ling. With a date scheduled, I felt slightly better about my future. So here I am sitting in my pajamas awaiting what is tomorrow.

-Travis