Getting here from there....

Some of you, for good reason, have asked us how this came to be. Well, hopefully, what I post here will give you an idea of how JT ended up at "First Words".

A few months back, James bumped the back of his head. Harmless, we know. But shortly thereafter he complained to Jennifer and I about some double vision. Jennifer made an appointment and Dr. John Vogt checked out JT. While Dr. Vogt couldn't replicate a lazy eye, he felt a complete opthamology checkout would be in JT's best interest and made a referral to Dr. James Berman at Maine Eye.

Now Jennifer and I both have corrective lenses so we've viewed the whole issue of eye correction for both of our kids as more of a 'when' not an 'if'. The only thing was that we didn't get into glasses until junior high and were hoping that maybe the kids would hold off a bit. Anyway, off we went.

On June 12th Dr. Berman examined James and determined that his optic nerves were swollen and that this would only come from pressure on the nerve from the backside (brain area). But why? Dr. Berman scheduled a CT scan for 1pm and a neurological consult for 4pm.

We made our way to Maine Med and JT had two CT scans. After a brief wait, the radiologist told us that there appeared to be a "mass" in JT's head. The same little head that was running the bases at t-ball just the night before. James was immediately admitted to the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital and worked into the schedule for a late-day MRI.

While waiting, Jennifer and I met with the pediatric team, the neuro-surgery team and the oncology team. It was all just a whirlwind. Then a treatment plan was put into place - MRI and surgery were certain. Pathology would decide the extent of oncology's role.

At about noon on Friday, June 13th - a mere 27 hours after Dr. Berman initial exam - James was wheeled from room 636 to pre-op where the anesthesiologist prepped to put JT to sleep for, gulp, brain surgery. As you can imagine, time stood still as Dr. James Wilson and his (amazing)team went to work for just over four hours.

At close to 6pm on Friday evening we were reunited with James in the Pediatric Special Care Unit and waited for James to wake up. When he did we were braced for the silence that followed - we had been warned that temporary muteness can be a side effect of this type of surgery. We sat and slept by his side and on Sunday - Father's Day - June 15th we got our "First Words".

As always, thank you for your amazing support. Love to you all.
dct