Something to truly be thankful for...

Last night we were invited to a "party" at the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana hosted by Fredrick's Neurosurgeon, Dr. Muhonen, and his partner. Apparently, all the children that have surgery during the year are invited to this end of the year get together with food and toys and lots of fun.

When we got there we waited in line outside the building and couldn't believe how much the line continued to grow!! It's unbelievable to think how many children these 2 doctors have helped just in 2009!!

Once we got inside and had our name tags and tickets we headed to the food...Taco Bell (Greg purposefully didn't eat much that morning to save room for dinner!!) and luckily we didn't have to wait too long. We ate dinner and then decided to head over to the rest of the building and see what was going on.

When we first came in and registered we were given 2 tickets, one was for Freddie (the patients) to pick a toy, and one was a sibling gift ticket for Karyl. We thought it was cute and figured they would get some little cute toy...well, we got in line and as we rounded the corner we couldn't believe our eyes...it looked like someone had just raided the toy section at Target and brought one (or two) of everything!! We were taken into the room and Dr. Muhonen's wife (also Dr. Muhonen...) took Karyl to one side to pick out a toy, while Freddie and Daddy went to the toy section for the patients and the volunteers took one look at him and said they had the perfect toy...they dug into the pile and pulled out a HUGE yellow ride-on dump truck.

I couldn't help myself...I started tearing up. I just felt so thankful for not only Dr. Muhonen, but for how special these people were making all these kids feel. Even though Freddie is too young to remember any of this, he was being treated like he truly was someone special.

Karyl got to run around and touch and play with everything...she was in HEAVEN!!! She played in sand and threw balls around a "Gravity Well"...and she and Daddy even got to check out a Zamboni close up!! While I sat and fed Freddie, they went into the Science of Hockey area and checked out all things Hockey. I have no pictures, but they had a blast!!

Greg also walked around with Freddie for a while and let him look at things...

Then, before we left we headed back to the front to hopefully take a picture with Dr. Muhonen now that Freddie was full and calm, and he gladly obliged...twice...

After we took the first picture, he took a look at Freddie's head and laughed and told us that most doctors like to shape their patient's heads like bowling balls, but he prefers the more oblong shape; and then he took Freddie back and said, "here, take a picture of both our heads, they are the same shape..." and sure enough, he was right =)

What an amazing doctor, and what an amazing night. We felt so blessed to have been referred to his office. He truly is an amazing doctor and he did an amazing job with Freddie. He talked to us for a minute and told us that no offense, but he didn't want to see us back there next year. The party is only for the kids that have surgery and Freddie is one of a small percentage of his patients that had a one time problem. Most of his patients are kids in wheelchairs and ones with serious neurological problems, and it was hard to be there and not feel guilty for having 2 perfectly healthy children, but the kids there were so sweet and ALL the kids, whether walking or in wheelchairs, were having so much fun.

So, this Holiday season I am truly thankful for my family and for Dr. Muhonen for not only helping Freddie and fixing his head, but for his honest and caring demeanor. He truly makes you fell like your child is his #1 priority and that he will take care of them and make them better...and he did!! We are so blessed to have both our children, but we truly feel blessed to have Freddie and to have him healthy and growing just fine. Things could have gone so horribly wrong if our pediatrician hadn't caught the problem and referred us to the surgeon and regardless of what this ends up costing us, it was worth every penny, every sacrifice we will have to make to pay for his surgery because now he is 100% healthy, and when you have healthy and happy children, you truly don't need anything else.