Home from TCH

[Donna (Colleen's Mom)]

Wow, I hope that is the last time I need to post that!

Colleen's pronator tendon transfer went well, with no surgical complications. She has her splint and is very happy that it is not the SOL splint!

We're finally unpacked and feel a bit rested now. We had quite an adventure: Saturday Colleen woke up with a temp of 100.4 and a cough, so her doctor put her on Zithromax. We also got 10 inches of snow later that day. I worried about anesthesia as well as the probability our flight would be canceled due to the weather. Sunday we are all packed and in the van ready to go to O'Hare when we find out we have a flat tire on the driver's side. (Couldn't be on the passenger's side where we would have seen it sooner) So while switching vans, my daughter gets hit in the head with my son's carseat accidently by my sister-in-law. No major harm done and she recovers quickly.
So now we are at the airport and low and behold, we are held up at the security check point because Colleen brought her not-so-blunt scissors in her pencil case. They actually took her vinyl, see-thru Barbie suitcase and went through it with a little handheld wand. I was embarrassed by the fuss and all the people staring at us as if we had committed a major offense.
We landed in Houston and waited at the luggage claim area. We must have watched the same luggage go around about five times before we realized our stuff was not there. Goody. The airline tracks our luggage and finds it on the wrong plane, and that it would be arriving at Houston at 10pm, we should have it by midnight. OK, I can live with that. But wait! The address to the Best Western is in our luggage, and the cabby won't take us there until we find the right
address. We get the address after a few phone calls and head off the hotel.
We get to our room and it is not what I made reservations for. Easily fixed as we move across the hall to a bigger room. We need to get to the hospital by 7am, so we all try to sleep even though we still don't have our luggage. I call the airport again and they say the latest our bags will get to us midnight. Midnight comes and goes and we still haven't heard anything. My contact lenses are dried up and stuck to my eyeballs at this point and I cannot sleep. Finally 4am rolls around and we get the call our bags have arrived. Thank God! (I learned some valuable lessons this trip.)
In the morning, we take the shuttle bus to the hospital, and it breaks down on the way! Fast forward to the surgical waiting room, Colleen is in having surgery and I am stressed and trying not to cry. A woman comes in with five kids all under 6 years old. She leaves 3 of them alone for several hours and becomes wild when she returns for them and finds social services has taken them to a separate room.
The last thing that happened is our sil decides to try to be helpful and brings our van in to get the tire repaired. While in the shop, the passenger side mirror gets smashed and the side is badly scraped. Perfect ending for our trip! But as I said before, the surgery went well, and that's the most important thing.
We are glad to be home.

***Thank you Francine for the surprise phone call.

[browning93]

Gosh Donna that sounds like one of my stories! So, Glad the surgery went well. Keep us up to date. Now, go get that big piece of chocolate cake and a cup of flavored coffee after everyones in bed and give that huge sigh you've wanted to let out for 10 days now!!!LOL LeeAnne

[Donna (Colleen's Mom)]

Hey Jennifer,
Murphy's Law was really giving us a hard time!
I'll give you a call sometime this week. I just hate to bother you at work. I'm glad you decided to see Dr. Shenaq...he really is a sweet man!
Talk to you soon, Donna

[Donna (Colleen's Mom)]

Hi LeeAnne,
Yes, the flavored coffee was my treat this morning! Ken is home from work early tonight so the kids are his to put to bed and I am going to bed early. That's a treat enough for me!

[Jallie]

Hi Donna,

Sorry to hear about your experiences on your trip, what a week you had. We must have just missed each other at TCH, Monday morning. I had been watching for you and thought maybe you guys didn't make the trip after all. Even though we didn't have surgery, we stayed the week, but seemed to be in one office or another the entire time. Glad to hear the surgery went well and best wishes to Colleen.

Julie Wolfgram