Mikey's final surgery was yesterday! I cannot tell you how thrilled we are to have this behind us. Yes, we still have the recovery road ahead for this one, but just knowing this is IT is such a huge relief.

During the procedure yesterday the doctor found a gonad on Mikey's right side. It was mostly ovarian material with a wee bit of testical material. That, combined with really short blood vessels meant it made more sense to just remove it than to try and bring it into position. There was also a tiny sliver of cells nearby that may have been uterine, so those were removed as well.

What this all means is that our diagnosis has changed; so I'm now researching to try and understand the new piece of the puzzle. Based on the very brief digging I've done, I wonder if we actually have two conditions instead of one, because Mikey seems to have characteristics of both. I'm hesitant to post much more right now since I've only just begun my research. One thing I learned when I started my KS research is that there is a lot more "bad" informatiion out there than "good", so I'll have to dig deep.

Be that as it may, at the end of the day we have a wonderful, beautiful, happy child that will now be able to move past all of these surgeries.

Mikey's next, and hopefully last, surgery is scheduled for tomorrow. In this surgery we will be dealing with his right testical. FIrst, they will determine if there is even one there and, if there is, it will be removed, examined, repaired (if needed) and put into proper position.

Despite knowing this surgery should be easier than the ones in the past, I still feel just as anxious. I guess it never does get any easier.

Please send prayers our way for Mikey and his doctors. I'll update the site tomorrow after we are done.

Care'

Wow. I have been very remiss in blogging lately. I guess the good news is that things are so normal, we rarely think about Mikey's condition anymore. We are so focused on our noisy, curious, energetic two-year-old that I tend to forget that anything is amiss. However, I realize that there are parents out there that are still trying to figure all of this out, and I apologize for being so absent. So, here's a big catch up post.

Development - We remain on target or ahead of schedule on all developmental milestones. Mikey is talking up a storm and it seems as if he picks up 2-3 new words each day. His favorite phrase is "hurt me" and we hear it as soon as Jake gets within 10 feet of him. LOL!

Recent Surgery - Our last surgery was October 30th. During this surgery Mikey's left testical was brought into position and the fissure on the bottom of his penis was closed. Fissures - or openings - are very common for the surgery that Mikey had back in April. Fortunately, this surgery went really smoothly and Mikey seemed to rebound quickly. We did find his left testical was an ovateste, so the doctor decided to hold off on any work on the right testical. The ovarian tissue was removed and the testical was put into the proper position. Looking at Mikey now, you'd never know he wasn't born perfectly normal in that area. It is truely amazing what they can do.

Upcoming Surgery - Our next surgery is just a few days away on February 19th. In this surgery they will be inserting a laproscope to see if there is a testical on his right side. If you recall, there is some mystery surrounding that testical. We have had only one doctor say he felt something, and he said it felt small. Since then no one else has been able to feel anything, so it is quite possible there is nothing there. If that turns out to be the case, Mikey will have one small incision near his belly button. If they do find a testical, it will be brought into the proper position. The good things about this surgery are (1) no cathedar and (2) it SHOULD be our last!

Vince and I were talking the other morning about how strange it will be to no longer think about the next surgery. For the past two years our lives have been completely arranged around medical procedures. In fact, I haven't taken a real vacation in a while as I always have to schedule around doctor visits and surgeries. We are really looking forward to that little bit of normalcy.

More later. I have a noisy 2-year-old saying something "hurts me" that I need to check out. :)

The surgery is now a few days behind us and things are - almost - back to normal. When we arrived on Friday and chatted with the doctor, we were a little surprised that they had the testicals & hernia on the list. We just didn't think that was an option at all. When the doc left, he said that he'd see us sometime that night. We settled in for the long haul, so you can imagine our surprise when they came out less than an hour-and-a-half later.

It turned out that they only dealt with the penis - which was basically laying in the new tube and closing it back up. The testicals and hernia will wait for another day. We're okay with that. After all, just ensuring the new tube works properly is plenty for right now. Besides, I do still have some hope that the testicals will descend on their own.

The catheder was to remain in place until next Monday, but Mikey decided he had enough and pulled it out last night. We had to watch him closely to ensure he was able to urinate, and he seems okay on that front. We don't know yet if he's peeing from the tip of his penis or the base, because he's been filling up the diapers like crazy.  So, stay tuned for news there.

He's a little fussy (okay, a LOT fussy) but other than that he seems back to his normal activity. He's running around here in such a way that you'd never know he just had surgery. We are still giving him pain medication (motrin) and he's still on an antiobiotic. Our next visit is on Monday, so I'll probably have more news then.

Thanks to everyone for the kind words and prayers. They help more than you will ever realize.

Today will be Mikey's third surgery. For some reason, I'm much clamer for this one than I've been in the past. I don't know why . . . maybe it's because this should be the last major one. Of course, all surgery is major, but the next one should be dealing with an undescended testical only, so that should be a piece of cake compared to what we've been through and are about to go through.

In today's surgery the doctor will move the urethra to its proper positioin and close up his penis (currently butterflied). In addition, he'll repair what we think is a hernia. I'm hoping there will be no skin grafts this time, but it's certainly a possibility. If that is done, then it will be an overnight stay (or two) instead of day surgery. We packed a suitcase for Vince just in case. We're starting to get superstiticious on that front - every time we pack a bag there's no overnight stay, but if we don't pack one there is. ;)

The good news is that the procedure will be done at the Children's Legacy location in Plano, which is MUCH closer to our house.

So, if you're reading this today, please send well wishes and prayers our way. Send them towards Mikey and for his doctors to have sharp minds and skilled hands.

I'll post later to let you know how everything went.

So, my little guy likes to hide things. It's so bad, that if you see him grab your keys or the remote, you had better follow him or you can kiss that item good-bye. For weeks now I've been missing a pair of shoes. Hubby has been missing his XBOX Gears game - just the CD, not the box - which means (a) hubby has been grumpy and (b) it has been difficult to find. The only one NOT missing anything is Jake, but he pretty much locks his little brother out of his room.

Well, today I decided to clean the house. Okay, that's not quite accurate. I HAD to clean the house because our insurance agent is coming over tomorrow. Because I've put it off a while, it needed some serious attention. (I'm more of a keep-things-straight person than a dust-the-back-of-the-television person, so I had some work to do).

Here's what I found over the course of the last few hours:

-V's missing XBOX game
-A 1/4 full bottle for which we've been searching 3+ days (um, yeah, it stunk BAD!)
-V's tape measure
-8 binder clips
-2 DVDs
-5 socks
-8 partially eaten crackers
-1 pair of Jake's underwear
-2 Hot Wheels
-a piece of a transformer
-1 cookie sheet
-2 jars of baby food
-$.65 in change
-My calculator
-Miscellaneous pens and pencils
-1 pair shoes

We still haven't located:

-My WW Points calculator
-The remote to Jake's television
-My glasses
-Elmo

So, if you come to my house beware of (a) dust and (b) the little concealer.

With friendship!

We went to the doc today for our 6 week follow-up visit. Everything looks really good. The doctor is pleased with how everything has healed - the skin graft looks healthy and the penis is straight. We have another appointment in February to re-evaluate and decide if we need another round of testosterone. We did set the next surgery date - April 3rd. The doc is going to decide at our February visit if we will do the 2nd stage hypospadias repair or deal with the testical. I'm hoping we finish up with the hypospadias repair. The reason why is, if there is complications from the hypospadias repair, (very common),  that requires us to go back in. If we had to do that, we do the repair and fix the testical at the same time. So, that would keep us down to two more sugeries.

Complex, huh?

Mikey did very well at the visit. Normally he screams bloody murder any time the doctors examine him. In fact, after this last surgery, it took a while for Mikey to get where he wouldn't cry when we changed his diaper. Now, he just holds his breath and stares hard at you until the diaper is closed back up. Can't really blame him, though.

On a funny note, Mikey made friends with another 15-month-old boy while in the waiting room. They two of them had a blast running up and down the hallway screaming. The other boy's dad and I were chasing them both, but then realized we had to work together so WE wouldn't be the ones needing an afternoon nap. He stood on one end of the hall and I on the other. The boys just ran back and forth between us.

After about 10 minutes of that, Mikey decided he wanted Cheerios. I pulled them out of my bag and suddenly I had about six toddlers surrounding me. I felt like the lady with a bag of bread at a duck pond! All of the kids were shoving the Cheerios in their mouths. Mikey didn't care for that, so he was grabbing them and sticking them in his pockets. Looks like I have two only children.

Sigh.

I thought it would be a good idea to give another update since my last post was not so positive.

Now that we have a few weeks behind us, things are significantly better. It seems like everything begins taking a turn for the better as soon as the cathedar is removed. I just have to learn to survive that first week.

Everything seems to be healing nicely. The swelling in his mouth is gone as well, so he's almost back to normal activity. After a few more weeks we can resume his favorite game of "ride a little horsey."

We go to the doctor in about 4 more weeks so he can check on everything. At that point we'll schedule the next surgery.