4 Surgeries in 4 Months

That is how we roll.

As you can see I am setting a trend of only updating the blog once every 1-2 months.  Life is just too busy and way too much fun to sit here and write about it.  Too busy living it.  But I owe you all an update.  So here goes...

In December Jack had his neuro surgery to de-tether his spinal cord.  Like all things Motter it wasn't a normal 45 minute surgery.  Almost 2 hours in they finished.  The doctor came out and said he had never seen a spinal cord so badly tethered in his career and he has done hundreds of these surgeries.  He said when he cut the cord it snapped like a rubber band it was so tight.  We were told we would be in the hospital for 3 days in ICU, but again like all things Motter, Jack kicked recovery's ass and we went home after 2 days with only 1 day in the ICU.  There are pictures in the post below.

Then we had Jack's first Christmas.  The poor kid thinks it's a week long event with presents everyday, since we went to many different locations to open presents with different parts of the family.  Next year will be shocking.

New Years was a great evening with dear friends, then we all went back to school.

My term started again, the boys hit the ground running.  Isaac is finally reading at grade level (huge thing for him) and Jack is of course bored out of his mind at school because of how advanced he is... the only decent thing China did for him.







On Jan. 31 we headed to CHOP once again for a big surgery to put Jack's growing rods into his spine.  The surgery went off without a hitch.  As you can imagine this was a relief since the last time we sat in a waiting room during this kind of surgery for Isaac things didn't go as planned.  Isaac's Surgery




They took Jack directly to his recovery floor at CHOP after they got him off the ventilator in the PACU.  He was in a lot of pain the first few days, but by day 3 he was up and walking around.  By day 4 he was ready to go home, but of course we got stuck at the hospital for two more days waiting for his new blue spinal brace to arrive.



We are home now.  He is standing behind me playing a video game and will have to stay home for the next 20 days or so.


He grew 2.3 inches in one day and looks amazing.  His spine had 104 degree curve and they got it down to 52 degrees.  Pretty amazing for a single day of surgery.

Isaac is well into his wrestling season.  He is currently 9-5 with 3 pins.  This is HUGE since last year he was 3-13 with no pins.  He is killing it this year.  I am amazed every time he walks on that mat.  He is fearless.  The team has taken to calling him King Kong because of his build.  He upper body is something to marvel at.

Now I am sure you are thinking wait that is only 2 surgeries... well in just a few days Isaac will also go under the knife.  He has a severe middle and inner ear infection and they have to go in and totally reconstruct his ear on the inside.  They are pretty sure the infection has been growing for years (with no symptoms, only my son)... thanks Africa!  He is of course not happy since this will put him out for the rest of the season until championships which he should be healed enough to participate in.

Then Isaac will have surgery on his right foot again in March right after Championships.  So that will put us at 4 surgeries in 4 months.  Jack will have his next spinal surgery in July assuming he doesn't have hardware failure which we have been told can happen easily with the type of rods he had put in.

So that is it.  I have somehow managed to continue working, stay at hospitals, make it to every wrestling meet, and snowboard... Some might say slow down, but life is short... see ya soon!