Josh's back surgery

We are now one-week post Josh's double spinal fusion back surgery.  Most of our family and friends know this surgery has been coming for awhile.  Josh had a less invasive back surgery about two years ago, which was successful and worked for him for a little over a year.  However, about six months ago, his back pain became unbearable again.  This has impacted nearly every area of our lives and he finally decided to have this surgery in hopes that it will reduce his pain by at least 50 percent.

After a lot of thought and deliberation, he decided to go through the navy doctor at Portsmouth Naval up in the Virginia Beach area.  This meant we packed the family up and headed there (about a 3 1/2 hour drive) for the surgery and for the three extra days he stayed in the hospital.  Luckily, our very good friends the Rapers, live in the area.  In fact, they had JUST moved back to Virginia Beach from Quantico one week before. They graciously offered to let us stay with them even though they were in the midst of a major transition themselves.  We were lucky.  I'm not sure what we would have done without them.  We stayed at their house, Alison watched the girls a couple times while I was at the hospital (including when I took Josh in for his surgery at 4 am!), and helped feed us.  Josh was in surgery last Wednesday for nine hours!  That's how involved this surgery was.  I was very nervous at 2 pm when I still hadn't heard from the doctor.  Luckily, everything went well, but he is still in a lot of pain.  He is looking at a long recovery, but we hope and pray it will be worth it in the end.

We went to dinner with the Rapers the night before Josh's surgery.  He requested Mexican.  Here is the one picture we took with them:

And this might be a little graphic for some, but here is his incision.  His staples just came out, so it looks slightly better now.

My parents have both flown out to help us over the next couple of weeks.  I am very grateful for their help as well.  Over the past couple of years, they have used all their vacation time to come here to help us through one thing or another (bringing home newborn twins, deployment, etc).  To be honest, it is during times like these that I really struggle with living so far away from family.  Usually I put on my big girl pants and deal with it, but it does get to me at times.  I'll be glad when we get through this summer.