Alistair, Francis & Luella MacMillan: All's Well

So at the end of November we did a family road trip to Vancouver for a week of appointments for Alistair. Its funny as it felt like a family holiday even though we were heading to the Children's Hospital almost every day. What I didn't realize was this was the first time Jason had come down with us since Alistair was discharged from the NICU there. I have to say its no fault of his that this is the case as he's offered many a time but generally Jason was busy with work and I figured "heck I can do it" and was always fortunate to have someone come along. Well this time with Dad being with us it was just a whole different kettle of fish. So nice. Although its always been so nice to have others come along and help its different having Dad there. He just knows what to do. So if I need a break I can totally remove myself and he knows the routine. It also helped for my recoup once I got home as its exhausting when your doing it ALL all the time for a whole week. My recoup needless to say was so much better this time round.

I think it also helped that our first appointment was to find out if Alistair's diaphragm had re herniated as there was concern from his previous xray. So I was so happy to find out that following an abdominal ultrasound and xray we didn't need to proceed to having a CT scan. Knowing that they are equivalent to having 300 xrays at once it was definitely a relief he didn't need this. So yes the "holiday" started out nicely. Then we also got his personally made foot splints that work like a charm. The other ones that we got off the shelf just were so easy for Alistair to push right off his feet. Now his jungle theme ones keep his feet placed nicely and he's comfortable to boot! The last part of the week was prepping for and Alistair having his testicular surgery. All went well and it truly is a minor surgery in the whole grand scheme of things but still no one likes having there kidlet go under anaesthetic. Even with my nursing back ground it still unnerves me the two times I've held Alistair for his IV (that parts OK) but when they inject that anaesthetic and Alistair goes from a hyper active kidlet to a floppy one in my arms it always makes me feel a tad on the ill side. Anyhow it all went ticketyboo and we gave Alistair a full day to recoup before heading back on the road to get home. As always the scenery is gorgeous and both directions we were incredibly fortunate to have dry driving conditions.

Of course we had to stop in Cache Creek at the DQ and give the kids a break and of course fill up on some ice cream. Francis was more then happy to try a little bit of blizzard.

The very next day after rolling back into PG we headed out to Grandma's farm to grab a Christmas tree. Grandma watched the kids as we went tromping around the acreage and found a couple of trees. One for us and one for Grandma. It always helps put me in the spirit of Christmas going through the whole ritual of finding the "perfect" charlie brown tree to decorate for the season.