Urologist #2

I thank each of you who prayed for us today. #1 Ian's reports were faxed to his new doctor on time, and #2 the kids did pretty well during our long road trip. The only time Nadia cried was when I turned off the DVD around 12:15 and insisted she take a nap. She had a VeggieTale marathon, lol. Ian did very well on the way down. He played happily, slept, played happily, and slept some more. He played for awhile on the way back, slept, and then cried for the last part of the trip. We left at 10:30 and got home at 6:30. We were at the doctor's office for about 30 minutes. If we hadn't made any stops, the trip would have taken 2hr 45 min. We stopped for gas and for lunch at Wendy's on the way down. On the way back we had dinner at Denny's as I didn't want to eat fast food twice in one day. I kept Ian up until 8:15pm to try to compensate for the fact that he had 4 naps today. Hopefully he'll sleep until at least 5:45am.

The best news was from the urologist who said that #1 Ian's first surgery was done well, #2 Ian is healing well and most of the skin that was left hanging off will be usable in the next surgery (if there's not enough they will use skin from his mouth for the reconstruction of his urethra), and #3 Ian's urethra is not as bad as the first doctor said it was. He said the size of Ian's urethra is completely normal (which is quite different from what the first doctor said) and that even if there was a problem with the native urethra, it can be fixed (which the first surgeon said was impossible). What a relief!!! He said that he would expect to use a size 6 catheter on a baby Ian's age (whereas the first surgeon said that size is only used for newborn babies). The surgeon we saw today said that robotics is his specialty. He took pictures of Ian to show his colleague whose specialty is reconstruction. He said that patients from all around the world come to see his colleague for reconstructions -especially if their first surgery wasn't done properly. He said Ian's first surgery was done properly but that still it would be best if this other surgeon did his next surgery. He thinks it should take place in February and that there is only a 5% chance that a third surgery will be needed. Today we went to Exton. He said the next appointment would be in King of Prussia in a month or two and that the surgery would be done in Philadelphia in three months. I'm not looking forward to making the trip two more times, but it's worth it so that Ian can see one of the very best pediatric urologists.