Laughter, the Most Painful Medicine

Today is day 3 post-op. Yesterday was considered one of the worst days as far as pain goes. It was pretty bad but Chase is a trooper. I can't believe how tough he is. James and I actually slept well last night. Didn't wake up until 830. When Chase woke up, he looked a lot more like himself than he has since surgery. We were chatting and I said something funny and he started laughing, then crying because it hurt so much to laugh. So for the next few minutes it was the laugh/cry thing then finally just the cry thing. I told him I was really sorry and I promised I wouldn't be funny anymore.

Everyone here is funny. Especially Dr. Levitt. He came in yesterday when Chase was having a really bad moment and made Chase laugh which was actually not a good thing because IT HURT!! Really bad.

They've gradually been taking away his pain meds. He's off the Morphine drip and only gets it once every three hours but only if we ask for it and he's on a Motrin type drug which I think helps a lot more than the narcotics. He got his catheter out today. He was sooo excited. But now he has to get up and go potty which means a lot more moving around. He has absolutely hated us getting him up and making him walk. But after they took the catheter out, he said he needed to go to the bathroom. I didn't have to help him much. It was awesome. It's such a relief to see him getting his strength and personality back.



Chase was actually was doing just fine in the chair. He looks totally miserable but he likes to put that face on as soon as I look at him. He doesn't want me to think he feels good. He really wants us to know what we've done to him.

Funny story, so HD is very rare. Only 1 in 5000 kids have it. 95% of the time, surgery fixes the problem completely. 5% of the time there are complications like Chase's. We've never met another kid who has it. But it just so happens that there is a little boy here who is also from Utah, has HD and has come here for the same operation Chase has because of the same complication. Dr. Levitt operated on him right after Chase. He told us about each other so we could meet and share our experiences. When we met them, I can't tell you how amazing it was to talk to somebody who understands 100%. Our stories are so similar. We're planning to keep in touch and have the boys get together back home. It will be a great thing for Chase. The little boy's name is Alex and he's 6. His mom brought him over to visit Chase today in the room. They got along great. Chase's operation was a bit more complex than Alex's so Alex is healing more quickly and hasn't had as much pain. I tried to get a picture of the 2 of them but couldn't.