It’s taken me a little while to get to this, with other things that have been happening.

Last Wednesday was Jaxon’s spinal specialist appointment. It was by far one of the longest days we have ever endured.

Brisbane is a 3 hour drive away from us, depending on traffic and adding in a breakfast stop. So the day always starts at least 5 hours before we actually have to be at the appointment. On this day, Jaxon was awake at 7.30am. He’s normally still asleep at 9.30am…so he wasn’t a happy chappy.

We also happened to have a club foot appointment with Wendy. That had been scheduled for 12.30, while the spinal was at 1.30pm. But Wendy called the day before and told us she was in meetings and that she couldn’t see us until 1.30. She told us to go and register for the spinal and then go and see her. What she was asking us to do was risk not being there when they called us in for the appointment that was more important. Being that the club foot issue is well and truly under control, we decided that we would deal with Wendy later and that if we didn’t get to see her, we didn’t get to see her. She could wait.

So at 1.30 we registered and Jaxon got weighed and measured. We waited another 15 minutes and got called up to go to another department to get new x-rays of his neck done. So we lugged everything off to X-ray and waited yet another half hour to be seen there. Because they were the first x-rays done by the hospital, we had to explain EVERYTHING to them again, and they needed to call doctors and what not to find out if Jaxon was to be seated, standing or laying down for his shots.

X-rays are a messy business when it come’s to kids. Jaxon just wouldn’t sit still. He ended up having Tim holding his arms and legs still and a nurse forcing his head on to the back of the chair. It was just awful. He screamed through the entire session.

Once they were out of the way we were sent back down to the waiting area for our appointment. It was here that Tim and I witnessed one of the BEST fashion statements that we have seen in a long time. A woman sat with her three daughters. In a parachute jumpsuit. A florescent yellow one. She had a T-Shirt tucked in to her pants, which were well above her belly button. She had her pants tucked in to her socks and was wearing sandal’s. She had a baseball cap on, with over the top, too big for your face Paris Hilton sunglasses on. And to top it all off, she had a fake pearl necklace on, that hung down her stomach.

So we waited yet another half an hour or so. We finally got called in to our appointment. It was difficult for the doctor to see anything clear enough to make any judgment call’s. He can see that there are 3 or 4 fused vertebrae down the left side of Jaxon’s neck, and the same in the back of his neck. He said that if he were to remove the affected vertebrae, it would come out in one big chunk of bone, not 5 separate bones. There is also the hemi-vertebrae, or half vertebrae.

Nothing can be decided. He threw a few suggestion’s out there but the main concern is that doing anything to his spine could paralyze Jaxon. So care needs to be taken when they’re deciding what to do. He also said that to straighten up Jaxon’s head he can’t do anything about the side with the hemi in it, but that they *might* be able to fuse the other side to level him out. Still, nothing is to be decided.

Jaxon is having a cat scan and an MRI scan on the 25th of November this year. We just got out appointment and Jaxon will be going under general anaesthetic for the procedure. It’s scary to think about that, but the thing I am more concerned about is the 6 hour fast. He has to be there at 7am, but the procedure doesn’t start until 8.30am. Which means that for those first few hours of the day, Jaxon is going to be off his head crazy mad at us for not giving him his morning bottle and breakfast.

Finally, we went and saw Wendy for his club foot appointment. She wasn’t thrilled at us for putting his spinal appointment before going to see her but we didn’t care. We also told her that we’d be giving the boot’s back and just keeping a close eye on his foot. There is a 65% chance of a relapse for his foot without the boots. But we haven’t been putting them on him for longer than we’d admit to Wendy, and still his foot is fine. We’re still going to go back on the 25th, to let her look at it and make the final choice about the boots.

I nearly forgot to tell you the two most interesting things that happened while at the hospital (apart from the things that are still to come)

Tim and I park on the 7th floor of the parking building. It’s a long way up, right at the top and we park there because it is always empty and it’s easier to just go all the way up there than keep our eyes open for a parking spot. On our way out, as we drove around the first bend, we saw a bubble. A single kids bubble. Floating past our car. There wasn’t another soul in sight.

Then as we neared the bottom and the exit, we both saw something walking across our path. I knew what it was, but because it was SO out of place in the car park, I just couldn’t think of what to call it. So Tim was saying “is that a cat?” and I know it’s not a cat, but can’t think of it’s name so say nothing. He then changes his mind…”is that a dog?” And again, I know it’s NOT a dog. In the end it came to me. Right there, in the middle of Brisbane City, at the basement of a hospital car park…was a turkey. You heard me. A gobble gobble turkey. It was the funniest thing. It walked right past us stopped at the machine to pay for it’s ticket, and then down the ramp leading in to the hospital!

Stayed tuned for part two of this day!