hip hip hooray!

Well, it was somewhat of a long day, but truly, Ethan could not have handled things better....

We weren't planning to leave for his day surgery appointment today until around 11:00 this morning. His surgery was scheduled for 1:00 pm. So, I treated our morning fairly routinely - except for not being able to feed him anything but Pedialyte before 9:00, and nothing at all afterwards. Anyhoo... I'm sitting in our recliner, eating some oatmeal, and watching a Blue's Clues video with Ethan while he's playing on the floor. It's about 8:15 in the morning. As I take my last bite of my breakfast, my cell phone rings. I recognize the hospital's number by now. The nurse on the other end of the line proceeded to tell us that there was a cancellation, so they wanted Ethan to come in right away. Did I mention that I was still in my pj's? When the nurse asked if we could leave right away, I jokingly said that I'd need to brush my teeth first, and she honest-to-goodness said "don't bother, we need you guys to come in now!".

Of course, I still brushed my teeth and tried to look somewhat presentable... but then we were out the door! By 8:45, we are checking in at the appropriate floor. And apparently, Ethan wasn't the only patient they had called in a panic to move up all the day's appointments. This is where God's sweet presence was quite obvious. Ethan and I had to wait in the pre-op area for about 4 hours. So glad we rushed, huh? No, I'm just joking. It ended up being just fine. Ethan was mesmerized by the hustle and bustle of people and kids all around him. He was soaking it all in. Never a fuss. Never a cry. Just observing. He was wonderfully well-behaved... and wow, was he patient! At 12:45 he went in for his tube removal, and fairly quickly was out in recovery. He was crying now, but only because he wasn't sure what was going on. And the rest of the night, he's been his normal, spunky self.

And.... without any tubes hanging out of his chest!!

I can barely believe it. I know it will make drawing his blood more difficult, but oh, what a sweet thing it is to see his chest free and clear. He can wear normal shirts now... take baths... and crawl around to his content. He can even go around the house shirtless if he wishes.... because there's no more fear of him tugging those lines or hurting himself with them. I'm soooo excited!! He has some bandages on him that I can remove on Friday, and hopefully all looks great when we take the bandages off. My parents and I were reminiscing about how it's been just over 10 months since these tubes were inserted into his chest and veins. He's just over 12 months old, so you can see how long it's been since he's had his central line. It has served a wonderful purpose for his treatment, but what a joy to have them gone!

Thank you so much for your prayers today. Everything went very smoothly. And Ethan did so so so well with all the hiccups in between. He was such a good boy!

Romans 8:38-39

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life,

....nor things present nor things to come,

nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing,

shall be able to separate us from the love of God

which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.