One Day Before

Today we picked Teresa up at the airport at 7:30 a.m.  We ate breakfast together and then headed across the street to Children's Hospital for our pre-op visit.

 They are very detailed and they have a Welcome greeter who greeted us and gave us the plan for the day.  She guided us to our different departments and answered our questions along the way.

First we went and Joe had his blood drawn.  This was to "type" his blood in case he needs a blood transfusion tomorrow.  Chance of this is 50%.  He then went to have xrays taken.  Teresa was able to be a part of that which she enjoyed as the X-ray tech in her came out.

We sat with the Nurse Suzy and she answered any questions we had.  We were then scheduled to meet with the physicians assistant, but we actually got to meet with the surgeon, Dr. Erickson.  He's awesome.  He talked to Joe first and then he asked us if we had any questions.  We found out that the fusion is from T4 to L4.  He will have two rods.   They will be screwed in at each vertebrae.

We were concerned with the Deters' triple jointedness they have (Dave, Jess, Joe).  This was an issue with Jessica's shoulder surgery so we pointed it out to Dr. Erickson.  Dr. Erickson said that the loose collagen will actually probably help him in aligning Joe's spine.  Yeah.

The schedule is as follows for tomorrow.  Arrive hospital 5:30 a.m. Mountain time.  We are with Joe until 7:30 a.m. at which time they will take him to the surgery room.  He'll have one hour (at best) of prep time in the surgery room and then surgery will begin at 8:30 ish.  Once surgery begins we need to allow 4 hours of surgery time and 2 hours of recovery time.  We can be with him in the recovery room.

Then 3 to 5 days of hospital stay.  Thanks again for all your prayers.