3 months post SDR

Dylan has been really busy and he's been having loads of fun! On Sunday 29th March he was at the SDR party in Dublin and met loads of other kids who have had SDR and other kids who are going to, Dr Park even came all the way from St Louis! And he met Mickey Mouse! 😃 Highlight of his life! :) Then on the Monday we sailed to Wales and drove from Holyhead to Cardiff passing through the beautiful Snowdonia! Dylan has his first day at SDR Fitness Wales on the Tuesday and he was super! 😃 Days 2 and 3 were tiring and there were some tears (but mostly giggles!) and Dylan is now back to pre op strength and dare I say a wee bit stronger than that!

6th April marked 3 months since Dylans SDR surgery and on the 7th April something just clicked with Dylan...Sit to stand no longer means "lean back and stiffen up" it is now controlled, he leans forwards and pushes down through his legs! Dylan stood holding my index fingers for 20 seconds and stood unaided for one whole second (that's really long for someone who's never done that before :) )
The future is looking bright for little Dylan! :)

Progress!!

Dylan could not use his Kaye walker while in the US, even with the sling seat, it was just too hard for him. We are now just under 6 weeks post SDR and 4 weeks post PERCS and Dylan can take a few steps in the Kaye walker! I have my fingers just in front of his hips to help him with his balance but that's about it, no sling seat!! Baby steps, but we're getting there! :) 

Day 33 of 30 - Hello Chicago

So may aswell do a blog post from Chicago while I'm here, sure it would be rude not to :) But I must warn you all, this is again mostly a rant, as we are now into day 33 of our 30 days in America! However, this rant comes with a happy ending! :)

After Sundays commotions we were so very happy to finally be on our way home! Everything seemed to be going well except for a one hour delay with the Aer Lingus flight but that was kind of in our favour as we weren't rushing through Chicago airport like we imagined we would have been! At about 7.45 we were advised that there was a delay with the flight and we would get updated every 20mins, that's never good! Just after 8 the plane was being checked and cleaned, and it was still being checked and cleaned 2 hours later, until they finally told us that the flight was cancelled due to maintenance and we are all scheduled on tomorrow's flight instead. They gave us a $10.00 meal voucher each and told us to wait for the shuttle bus for the Holiday Inn, we managed to miss this shuttle as we had nappies to change! However maybe Lady Luck was secretly on our side again as people came back from the Holiday Inn fuming as there were no rooms available!! :-O

Aer Lingus then advised many of the travellers that they were going to put them up in a different Holiday Inn....an hour away!?? That didn't go down too well!!

We were one of the lucky few that were given the Hilton as our second option, no turning our noses up at that! :-D

On the shuttle we met two very nice gentlemen, one was part of the Aer Lingus debacle and the other was probably the nicest stranger we have ever come across in our 27 years! When we got to the Hilton this man was ahead of us in the queue and asked the guy at the front desk to give us his loyalty points to upgrade our room to the nicest one, which was a Presidential Suite!! :-O 

Our travel nightmare has actually turned into one of the nicest memories :) 

Chicago wasn't so bad to get stuck in after all! :)

The picture may not look like much.... But if you look really closely past all the fog/smog you'll see the Chicago skyline :)

Day 31 St Louis - The Longest Goodbye Ever!!

Warning! This Blog is a rant! :)

All week people have been telling us to check the weather and flight status before we leave on Sunday, just as well I did! We got up nice and early packed the remaining bits and checked the flight status to see this.....

It was an extremely stressful morning I have to say! I spent about 4 hours on the phone (2 of those hours I was on hold to United Airlines!) I rang St Louis airport to check as I wasn't sure of the validity of the website I was checking and I was told "Well it's only raining here, so you'll have to check with O'Hare Airport"..... Eh? Are you for real? You can't tell me if a flight is leaving your airport or not? This lady then proceeded to tell me that according to GOOGLE the flight was indeed cancelled! Yes that's right, I said GOOGLE!! >:-| 

I then rang Aer Lingus who confirmed that their flight to Dublin was leaving Chicago but was just delayed and offered to reschedule the entire booking for tomorrow, I said I'd leave it to see if there was any change on the flight from St Louis as the storm was moving north. There wasn't, so I rang Aer Lingus again to reschedule only to get through to the most unhelpful person I think I've ever come across who ended up telling me I need to ring United Airlines to reschedule and hung up on me!! Our United Airlines flight was a connector flight for 4 different companies as were many United Airlines flights today so as you can imagine the hold time was insane! After two hours on hold with United I chanced Aer Lingus again and with the luck of god I got through to the first person I had been speaking to and she rescheduled us for tomorrow, but we now only have 2 hours to get through Chicago as that was the only flight left out of St Louis tomorrow! 

On the way out here we were left waiting for Dylan's special needs buggy in Chicago for over a half an hour while everyone else was greeted with their wheelchairs, that buggy almost didn't stop in Chicago it was destined to go Dublin straight to St Louis and we almost had to carry Dylan, Deryn and bags through Chicago Airport, but I said I'd let that one slide, sorry I did now! 

Through all of the commotion today Lady Luck was somehow on my side as I checked all this before I left for the airport and we were able to just stay at the hotel, the room we are in wasn't booked for tonight so we didn't even have to switch rooms :) 

I am now hoping the next blog will be from the Emerald Isle (I may have spoke too soon yesterday!) 

Missouri, I believe you're known as the Show Me state..... Can you Show Me the way out please? :)

Day 30 - Goodbye St Louis!!

And that's a wrap!! :) We spent most of our day relaxing and packing and managed to get in one last meal at The Dubliner, there's nothing like a good shepherds pie! :) It has been an absolutely surreal experience! We originally sent Dylan's application to Dr Park in early 2013, so it has taken nearly 2 years to get Dylan here, the fact that he is now over his operations and we're going home is almost hard to believe.

We are glad this part is over cause there's no place like home but we are so grateful to everyone at SLCH, we have to come back in a year for Dr Park to review Dylan and (without wishing our lives away) I can't wait to see what happens in that year! Thanks for sharing Dylan's journey with us, the next blog post from us will be from the Emerald Isle, Dylan can't wait to get back to all his classmates (and teachers!)  :)

Day 29 St Louis - Last day at SLCH!

Dylan woke up in much better form today, he was walking all over the apartment and standing by the window very nicely! Dylan had an appointment with Dr Park today which was great. Dr Park was very happy with Dylan's recovery and progress and confirmed his thoughts on Dylan, he reckons Dylan will walk independently indoors,outdoors, everywhere!! Dylan has a lot of hard work ahead of him but if anyone will do it Dylan will and it will all be so worth it!! 

Dylan had his last physio session today with Michael! And of course, he did great again! :) Walked all over the place, did lovely sit it stands and had loads of fun on the trike!! Dylan also stood for a about 4/5 seconds without me holding on, he was holding onto a bench!! Again, I'm sure 4/5 seconds doesn't seem like much to most but me not holding him is HUGE!! :)

I have to say I'll miss a lot of people we've met here, the staff are fantastic in this hospital, they go above and beyond for our kids! We'll also miss Isla... Isla was Dylan's SDR buddy, they had surgery the same day, they shared a room after SDR, had PERCS the same day, had their casts off the same day and had their last physio appointment the same time, SDR buddies :) Isla is doing amazing things already and we can't wait to see how see progresses!! :) 

As much as it's been great, it's now time to pack up some bags as we leave on Sunday morning and get back home Monday morning, I can't wait to see everyone and my doggies, miss yee so much!!

Day 28 St Louis!

Not much to report today unfortunately, Dylan woke up a sick little boy, he had a sore throat and hasn't eaten much today, the mere mention of therapy or even his splints sent him into utter devastation, so he missed therapy today!! :( On the bright side he came around a little bit in the late afternoon and he did do a little bit of gentle "therapy" for me and he did well, he did some rolling, crawling and kneeling. Dylan is still quite weak, when he tries to come up on his knees his head looks really heavy :) but he's definitely getting stronger everyday! :) Dylan has one last physio appointment tomorrow and an appointment with Dr Park and that's it until his review this time next year! We are due to fly home Sunday but everyone is telling us the weather may be an issue as it's due to snow Sunday! :-/ Please light more candles!! :-)