Today, Mike received a great birthday present - our pre-op appointment with Dr. Park! It was so good to see him again (we met him in August when he came to our annual Ontario SDR picnic). We had a great appointment! In addition to SDR, Dr. Park will perform PVR (partial ventral rhizotomy) during the same operation using the same incision location. This will specifically help James’ scissoring (the crossing of his legs when he tries to take steps). He spoke about this possibility with us when we met him in August too. We’re very excited about what this means for his ease of movement in the future. With the addition of PVR, his recovery will take longer at the start but will be well worth it. For a refresher of what the surgery is, check out our SDR post.
The hospital is beautiful! We were there for the majority of the afternoon seeing a variety of staff and ending with seeing "Sir Dr Park" who defeats the dragon of spasticity! We've been reading a book written by a fellow SDR parent (can be bought on Amazon) about the SDR surgery. He is such a nice man and is very positive about James' outcomes post surgery.
As you can see from the pictures, Shae was rather tired and spirited during our pre-op appointment today which made for a difficult time juggling managing Shae's behaviour while listening to the details of James' surgery (appointments during nap time are not ideal which Shae made very clear to us!) It was so fun to see Dr. Park's office with the walls covered with photos of kids (and some adults) who have had SDR - some of which we know! Here are some from Ontario:
Aidan, Dr. Park's first Ontario patient in February 2014:
Evi, who had SDR March 2018:
There were some group photos of our Annual SDR picnics too:
We also got to meet up for lunch with Virginia, a friend from Ontario who also has had SDR as an adult. She is here with her aunt as she had PERCS (muscle lengthening surgery) with Dr. Dobbs last week. It was so nice to see her! She's been a great encouragement to James and our family. Her blog is very much worth checking out.
We have a physical therapy assessment and filming appointment on Wednesday afternoon and then surgery is scheduled for 7:15am on Thursday. We're to be at the hospital at 5:45am! Thank you for your prayers and encouragement everyone.