September 9, 2007

Today would have been Charlie's big brother Will's fifth birthday. It is hard to believe that five whole years have passed since Will entered the world, and made us parents for the first time. We still miss Will every day, and wonder what he'd have been up to now, if he'd been able to stay. Although his birthday and the day that he left us are one and the same, we always choose to celebrate his arrival, rather than feeling sad about his loss. Happy birthday Will.
Thanks again for your messages/texts/emails of support for my dad. As I mentioned in my last post, he was due for surgery yesterday to put a permanent shunt in. In preparation for this operation, his lumbar drain was clamped at 10pm on Friday night, and removed altogether at 10am on Saturday morning. However, a number of emergencies came in during the morning, so dad was bumped back down the operating list.
We were amazed when we went in at around 2.30pm to find him very alert, and the most like himself he has been since this whole thing began. The nurse spoke to us, told us that the doctors would be discussing his case the following morning (today) and that if he continued to remain so alert, there was a 'definite possibility' that he would not need the surgery after all.
How strange, the way things work - if the emergencies hadn't come in, dad would have had the op first thing yesterday morning - but he didn't, and now it's looking like he might not need it after all. We're all hoping.