Cooper visits the Big City!

This morning we left bright and early to head to the medical center for Cooper's CAT scan. The first question the nurse asked was "Can Cooper remain perfectly still for 3-5 minutes?" Matt and I just looked at each other. "Um, No. He can not."

She thought it would be best to try anyway just to see. He was ok when we laid him down, but when they taped his head down and wrapped him in a metal blanket, he kinda freaked out. We decided to move forward with the anesthesia.

While the Dr.'s office made sure to call and remind us to bring money, they failed to mention that Cooper was not allowed to eat 6 hours prior. They wanted us to come back in a couple of hours with a starved Cooper who had not taken a nap yet. For some reason, he would not fall asleep this morning. That sounded like the worst idea ever. Smart Daddy decided to try another plan and convinced them to turn out all of the lights in the waiting area and rock him to sleep. When he had been asleep for a while, we walked through the hospital with the nurse going ahead of us turning off all of the lights. We laid him down, he opened his eyes and looked at us and went right back to sucking his thumb as he went to sleep. After the CAT scan, we found out the appointment with the surgeon to get the results had been moved to 2 in the afternoon so we had a lot of time to kill. We were off with a sleeping poopers and in search of food.

After we ate, we decided to check out the choir that was rocking out the first floor of the hospital. We only caught the end of the show, but we were desperate for entertainment. At this point, we had been going and going for 4 hours.

After the choir, we headed over to Texas Children's Hospital in search of some sort of baby friendly play room. They did have a room, but the toys left much to be desired.

We let Cooper crawl around for a while, and headed over to Dr. T's office to determine if Cooper needed surgery or not. While we were waiting, we met a little boy that I had actually heard about during all of my appointments. He had the surgery a week ago and was there for his first post-op. It was really difficult to see, but talking to the mom made me feel a tiny bit better.

Mr. T walked in and we could tell immediately that surgery was needed. He showed us the 3D scan, and it was obvious even to us. One side of his scull has visible lines indicating the sutures, and one side was solid bone. He sat down with us and made us look at pictures of other children of similar age before and after their surgery. He then showed us pics of babies immediately after the surgery and the progression in the following days. Next to waiting for the surgery to be over, the visual recovery is the most difficult. Their eyes swell shut and their head has lots of swelling as well. He compared their behavior to reverting back to newborn tendencies. Lots of crying, up all night, and cuddling.

After meeting with him, he sent in a photographer to take pictures of every angle of his head. It should be interesting to see the difference post surgery. We meet with the other surgeon participating in the operation on Thursday and then with the anesthesiologist right after. The surgery is scheduled for the 24th of this month. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers!!!