2022.06.01 - Post Op D6 (DIIIIIIIIISSMISSED!)

We didn't sleep as good as we wanted to last night.  No pain, no interruptions from nurses to take blood pressures or administer sleeping meds.... no, the problem was that since Cannon's chest tubes are out, the little gurgling collection boxes are gone.  They made the sweetest aquarium sound that put you to sleep.  We all sleep with fans, so not having fans or the constant gurgling noise was problematic.  And THAT is the worst issue we've had to deal with in the last 12 hours.  It's AWESOME!!

We just finished our last doctors rounds discussion.  All the doctors and nurses are thrilled with his progress.  They should be, they've all done a great job.  And the Champ has been outstanding!  He never complained, just took the challenges as they came and gave all he had.  He wants to recover ASAP, and he's willing to put the effort behind the goal.

The result of the discussion:

• Cannon WON'T be on beta blockers.  Dr. Lam (and team, I'm sure) says Cannon's pressures are much better than originally indicated as they re-started his heart.  When they were feeding him "rocket fuel" to get the heart going again, they didn't like the pressures in the aorta.  His aorta has an "offset" in it, and the quick change of flow direction causes resistance that builds up pressure when the heart is at a high rate.  However, they like his blood pressure now and don't think the pressures they saw inside the heart are a cause for concern.
• Cannon will be on aspirin forever to preserve the valve/conduit.
• We're hoping to get 12-14 years out of this setup.  It may be shorter than that (ie less than 10).
• Mama and I may be retired before we have to do this again ;-)
• Future technology may allow for his valve to be replaced via a cath, but he's not a candidate for this type of procedure as technology stands today.  The technology may advance enough in 10 years that he'll be a candidate at that point.
• But that said, the surgeon previously mentioned that the conduit will almost certainly need to be replaced and that'll require an open-heart procedure.
• We should be outta here shortly after lunch.  The whole family is placing bets on the time.  Papa is the most optimistic, Gupa is the most realistic, Carrie is the most undecided (you can't submit TWO times!)  The rest of us are in between.

Leaving here, we plan to keep the hotel another night and spend some quiet time together.  We may go hit some museums.  Cannon wants to see the new Holocaust museum, and I'm a fan of just about any museum except art.

I know I still owe a post of pictures, I'm working on it.

2022.05.31 - Post Op D5

Maaaaaaan, we slept GREAT last night!  Everybody.  They loaded Cannon up with pain meds, plus his pain was greatly reduced by "something" they removed yesterday.  Cannon couldn't tell what it was, but you could tell he was feeling much better.  Pain levels had been at 7-8, but by bedtime last night he was at 2-3.  I never saw his eyes opened all night long, not that my eyes were open as often as the previous few nights.

This morning, the LAST chest tube came out, in addition to all but two IV ports!  There's not even anything going into the IV ports, but the ICU nurses like to keep access to his veins just in case they need in.  We don't think they'll need them at all.

So far this morning, we started at about 7 with the standard and obligatory X-ray.  Then nurse Jennifer Barr came in and took out the chest tube, heart probes, and JP line in his groin.  We went for a walk, had OT and PT stop by and teach him how to get dressed and shower (which are tricky tasks now).  It's hard to explain how eager he was to get a shower.  Don't tell him, but he smelled pretty bad!  He sweats like his daddy (mommies don't sweat), and he's been sweating a lot in his hospital bed.

The nurses have taken seriously to his bed sores.  I didn't know how serious bed sores are!  Our nurse has seen bed sores go so deep as to expose organs.  There's also laws/rules/policies in place governing the care of bed sores... they're required to patch them, and then sign and date the patches.

We have an echo coming up this afternoon which will be interesting.  We should see:

• More flow through the new conduit.
• Blood actually progressing properly through the heart, with the appropriate start/stop
• Since 2018, he's been "missing" a pulmonary valve.  It was stented open to try to increase flow for his growing body.
• A reading of the pressure through this mitral valve
• We'll get a reading a rest, but the real concern here is the pressure under stress.  Both with and without the beta-blockers.

For the rest of Cannon's life, he'll likely be on beta-blockers and aspirin.

• The aspirin will prevent the new conduit and valve from calcifying as quickly.
• The beta-blockers will clip the upper range of his heart rate to prevent it from going into "rocket" mode.  This will ease the pressure (read stress) at the mitral valve and prolong the heart muscle as long as possible.  Prayerfully, for a full and long life!  But who can extend his life by even an hour by worrying?  All this is in God's hands.

Cannon's appetite is back in full swing.  He attacked a biscuit and gravy this morning (with bacon), and for lunch he just polished off some of Nana's "airplanes" (a family-favorite of roast and noodles).

Gonna post pics to a separate posting... we gotta run get a special x-ray.

2022.05.30 - Post Op D4

 After another sleepless night, the agenda on the doctors' rounds this morning was focused on the pain management.  Tori allowed herself to sleep on the couch, and me to take sentry on the recliner next to Cannon.  We got quieted down about 1:30 AM, and Cannon and I alternated cat naps until about 6 AM.  I slept more than he did for sure... really feeling sorry for him.  It's miserable to be in such pain you can't sleep, regardless of your level of fatigue (which is high for him).  That said, the doctors were happy not only to increase his pain meds for the day/night, but for tonight the team will have access to sleep meds.  We requested this because last night the team ran out of "tools"... they'd given all the pain meds that had been ordered, and he still couldn't sleep.  They contacted the attending, who advised we wait longer for the meds to kick in.  They did kick in and reduce his pain, enough to keep him from writhing, but it wasn't enough to allow sleep.

The doctors rounds this morning brought more encouraging news... Cannon's right chest tube gets to come out today.  As well as the central line in his neck and the IVs in his arms (he's up to 4).  

Cannon is also feeling much better and is taking as many cat naps as we allow him.  We're trying to limit his sleeping because we want to ensure he'll sleep tonight.  As a parent, it's great NOT to see him squirming in pain.  If he was more extroverted, I think he would be screaming.

In the course of the day, Papa, Nana, and Gupa all got to come spend some time with Cannon.  Mama is spending quality time with the kids today, I'll take a few hours tomorrow.  Gupa and Papa are breaking all the rules and are both up here with me.  While they were up here, we're officially notified that we're downgraded to an Acute Care room!  We're out of the ICU woods.

• I think I mentioned before, the beauty of this new setup is that we don't move from one room to another.  We stay in the same room and they change the official designation of the room from ICU, to Acute, to Standard hospital room.  Everything they need for any of the above is in this one room.

We also learned we MAY be going home on Wednesday!

In the evening, Cannon got to take a walk.  Did two laps at high speed... he was walking quicker with only one tube in that he did before he had surgery.  He wants out of here!

We're fighting a minor issue with bed sores.  We're also learning that the nursing staff does let minor things slip through their cracks, which keeps us on our toes to stay on top of everything.  They've forgotten about the bed sores and the JP line in his groin from time to time.  Minor things honestly, but good to keep them on the table for assessment. They're always great about jumping on things when we bring them up.

It's surprising how busy it is in the hospital room.  I always think I'm going to have plenty of time to do some studies I've wanted to do, blog, be still, etc... NOPE!  There's constant nurses and doctors visits, decisions to make, discussions to have, statuses to keep track of, etc...

I'm going create a separate post with pics, stay tuned.

2022.05.29 - Post Op D3

I'm in trouble.  It's Monday, 5/30, and I didn't post anything yesterday.  The events run together so fast, it's hard to remember all the details just 24 hours later.  I'll remember what I can!

The day started (as usual) with a chest x-ray followed by participating in the doctors' rounds.  We really appreciate that we get to participate in this, I can't say it enough.  It gets the parents up to speed with what the doctors and nurses are thinking, but it's also a chance for us to fill in any gaps in their knowledge, as well as ask questions and participate in the plan for the day.  The gaps we usually fill are minor, just holes in their knowledge between what happened the previous night as compared to what they hoped/expected to happen.  Last night, Mama had to sleep in the recliner next to Cannon because he couldn't sleep.  He didn't have insomnia, the pain was just overwhelming.  At the same time, we need Cannon to have some pain in order to tell us how things are going... to make sure he's actually improving.  Pain meds mask the truth, so every now and then we have to remove the mask to let the truth be known.

In other news, one bonus today is Cannon got his left chest tube out.  This provided no relief to him, except there is one less tube/container to manage when moving around... like standing to pee, or moving to the chair for a while.

Another minor concern has been his ability to poop.  They've had him on a multitude of laxatives since this is very common when on pain meds.  I left about mid-day to spend the day with the kids and family.  When I came back, I was greeted with Mama asking Cannon to tell me what he'd accomplished.  His reply was, "I dropped a bomb!".  Enough said on that crappy topic.

Speaking of time with the kids, Tori and have been able to switch out a little bit.  Tori got some time yesterday, I took some time this afternoon.  We took a quick trip to Hermann Park and did some volleyball and frisbee.  Then it was back to the hotel for some pool time.  Then I had to run to Randall's to get Mama some DDP for the hospital, and back to the hospital grind.  It's amazing how fast time goes... we spend a lot of time walking to get goodies for Cannon from McDonalds or the hotel, and time walking to/from the hotel to switch out visitors, and the rest of our time is tending to Cannon and being present for all the minor procedures.

Today's minor procedures includes removing the left chest tube and getting up to walk and drop bombs.  There's also talk of taking out another chest tube tomorrow.

That's all I can remember for now, I'll come back later and post some pics, but I wanted to get an update out to let everyone know that Cannon's doing great!  Thank you for everyone's messages and asking "Where the ____ is the blog update!"  I'm happy so share with Cannon how many folks are supporting him.

2022.05.28 - Post Op D2

 11:30 AM

It was an interesting night. Night shift came on and mentioned that the Foley cath had come out at 1:30 PM, and that if he hadn't peed in 6 hours they'd have to do a straight cath.  While Cannon's vitals have all remained good, the poor kid couldn't pee.  He felt he needed to, but could only get a little out.  Mama and I were doing EVERYTHING we could to help Cannon resolve the situation.  We had everyone leave the room so he could have privacy, then we had the staff walk him and all his medical appurtenances to the bathroom.  The tubes barely stretched to let him stand at the toilet (with the door open)... once again we all left the room and gave him 20 minutes to work at relaxing (love that oxymoron).  Tori had previously been able to coax that 400 mL out using some warm water splashed on his hand.  Being my turn, I stood in the shower and held a large container of warm water around the wall so Cannon could hold his hand in the warm water.  FAIL.  I don't have Mama's magic touch... she blames my inability to splash the water on his hand.  We'll never know, he failed to bring forth the golden liquid of salvation from a straight cath.

They did an ultrasound and saw his bladder was full of about a liter of fluid.  He was then able to get about 400 mL out, but couldn't empty.  Then it refilled to 600 mL.  During rounds last night (which Tori and I always get to join), they were discussing his bladder.  One doc wanted to do a straight cath immediately.  Me and the other doc cringed... a straight cath is no laughing matter.  We successfully petitioned to have them wait on the straight cath until Cannon was in too much pain, or the next morning, whichever came first.

I'm happy to say, Cannon had a VERY successful night.  He's been able to empty his bladder... it's an impressive amount of liquid... and as an aging man, I find myself quite jealous.  I'll dispatch with the TMI and close this issue with the note that we (and especially Cannon) are praising God that we don't have to have a straight cath done.  And I did say "WE" don't have to have it done, because that's a pain all men feel in unison just at the thought of it.

During rounds this morning, they decided that his chest tubes are outputting enough fluid that they need to be left in another day.  This isn't terrible, but a bit of downer for Cannon.  The chest tubes cause him to take short (painful) breaths, which keeps his sat level down in the low 90's.  It also makes his lung exercises very painful and difficult to achieve his goals.  So today won't be too busy... we spent an hour reconfiguring his tubings so he could get up and sit in a chair.  We've had rounds, and frequent nurses visits.  Later we'll have OT and PT come by to do some more "exercise" and walking.  That's all that's on the schedule.

We're so glad to have Papa up here this morning, and looking forward to everyone else getting to come say hi.  I ask for prayers that we have no issues getting the rest of the family up here to see their star.

2022.05.27 - Post Op D1

6:30 PM

Since the last update, the Occupational Therapists came in to begin teaching Cannon how to function considering his recovery from surgery.  Given it was open-heart, he can't lift, push, or pull, nor can he raise his arms over his head.  It's also going to be a struggle for him to use his core for a while, so simple tasks like getting up from horizontal, or standing/sitting will have to be learned in a new way for the next 6 weeks.  After spending an hour reorganizing his various tubes/IVs, they were finally able to maneuver him so he could sit up.  He tolerated this well, so they got him to stand (having learned the correct procedure), and then sat him in a special "cardiac" chair.

They let him stay there a couple hours, then Physical Therapy came in to get him up and walking.  He had to have a walker to hold his oxygen and vitals monitor, and he used that to walk about 200'!  This all within 24 hours of surgery.  He had to endure quite a bit of pain to accomplish this, and we're quite proud he pushed through it.

He's also having to inhale through a restriction contraption that helps to exercise his lungs and get them to refill the chest cavity.  He understands his ability to do this excruciating task repeatedly is what will get him out of the hospital sooner.

He asked to remove the oxygen cannulas that he's had on.  The nurses approved, but his saturation dropped down below 90%.  After a few hours of no improvement, the oxygen had to go back on.  The expectation is that once we get the chest tubes out, he'll be able to take full and normal breaths and that'll restore his saturation.  That said, all he wants now is to get the chest tubes out.  This won't happen until fluid stops draining out of the chest cavity.

The only other significant news is that he's off the morphine IV and is now on oxycodone orally.  He's also down from about 12 IV meds to 3.  It's great to watch them remove "stuff" from his body and system!  The farther we get without incident, the more out of the woods we get, the more the stress comes down.

Some pics:

Our first look at Cannon as we came into ICU:

This isn't an 'ICU' room.  They have a new process where we get to stay in the same room and they change the status of the room.  It starts as an ICU room, then downgrades to "Acute Care", then is just a normal hospital room.  So we get to be with him the entire time, and no moving.  It's great!  But not good enough to offset the visitor policy.

After a long night, Cannon has a busy day.  Gotta start with some chow.  We were surprised the docs lifted dietary restrictions so soon!

Got chow, now it's time to work.  No laying around for you:

After sitting comes standing (without using your arms):

After standing comes walking.  He didn't play the "I just had open-heart surgery" card:

Looking back:

What do you do while your kid's in surgery?  Go to the pool (I'm busy sending updates):

10:30 AM

The worst part of this has been Cannon's pain immediately following surgery.  We'd told him about the morphine pump multiple times, so we expected his pain was beyond the morphine's ability to dull the pain.  After some troubleshooting, we learned that Cannon hadn't been pushing the button at all.  Once he got in the hang of that, he was able to get some rest... about 5-10 minutes at a time.  He'd wake up, hit the button, go back to sleep after a while, repeat.  That said, he was up quite a bit through the night from the pain and from the alarms going off on the vitals monitor.  Mama slept in the chair next to the bed and checked on Cannon all night, I slept on the couch and checked on Mama all night.  To be certain, I got more and better sleep than she did!  A mama bear and her cubs....

Activities started at 6:30 this morning with an X-ray, and it's been quite non-stop up until now.  After the nurses tended to him, a series of doctors have been in to study their portion of Cannon's case, then the entire team came through for "rounds".  Primary talking points:

• Cannon's BP has been just over 100/50.  Because of all the repair work they had to do on the vessels within, they'd prefer the pressures to be about 90/40.  They're addressing with meds for now to allow the stitching of the vessels to permit healing without higher than necessary pressure.
• Saturation has been 100% through the night, but is now down to 97%.
• Heart rate hovers at 74, respiratory rate at mid teens.
• The old conduit was extremely calcified, and the old valve had been destroyed by the cath we did in 2018 as we were trying to increase the diameter of the conduit for his larger body.  The goal this time around is to stay on an aspirin regimen daily to increase the longevity of the new conduit and valve.
• They're still not certain he'll be on beta-blockers to limit his heart rate.  If it prevents enlarging of the heart, I'm all for it.  We need his ticker to last him as long as possible... whole life would be preferable ;-)
• The chest tubes are laying inside his chest cavity behind his lungs.  They are a large part of the cause for the chest pains he experiences when breathing.
• He's being watched over by a surgical nurse, an ICU cardiologist, an adult cardiologist, and a pediatric cardiologist.  Not to mention the charge nurse, his assigned nurse, and that nurse's trainee.  Oh ya, and his parents.

We talked to the charge nurse (Sam) and asked her to do all she could considering the visitation policy.  Mike (Tori's dad) is flying in for this event... are we to exclude him from seeing Cannon?  Or should either of my parents be excluded from seeing him?  Of course not!  While she understands, she's still preaching about rules (besides Mama and I, we're to assign no more than TWO visitors for the duration of Cannon's stay).  When I asked the intent behind the rules, and what drove the rules, the answer was ambiguous.  Of course, they're trying to stay away from using the word covid, but they work into the answer.  The covid excuse in general is becoming less acceptable, and is completely unacceptable for us in this situation.  I refuse to wear my mask in the room, and wait to be told to put it on outside the room.  The staff were amazed when I told them Methodist has removed their mask policy; they didn't know they were way behind the times!  Their visitation policy is way behind the times, and only serves to add stress on top of what we would already have to tolerate.

And as I was wrapping this summary up, we've been informed we can have a third visitor for ONE-TIME for no more than two hours.  Absurd.  My ears are red.

2022.05.26 - Open Heart Surgery

2022.05.26 - 6:30-9:30PM

After a super-lengthy screening that took at least 4 minutes (seems long when you're ready to see your kid), we finally got back to see Cannon.  His eyes were closed, but he could open them with effort.  I can't describe what a relief it is to see him on the backside of this surgery.  Despite the surgeon's warnings that we're not out of the woods, it sure SEEMS like we're out of the woods having had the chance to see him, talk to him, and see him respond.

He's in a LOT of pain.  Cannon has always been tough.  He gets a lot of that from Mommy, and has gained a lot of it from previous experiences.  So we're finding it hard to see him in this much pain, knowing that we've seen him handle serious pain with barely a wince.  

He's actually a little hesitant to push the magic drug button to get some pain relief.  We keep reminding him, and he's getting into it.  But the morphine doesn't seem to help much.  We just had them double-check it... he's hit the button 6 times, so it's as good as it gets for now.

While I'm here... my apologies for the delays in posting.  During his 2012 surgery, the whole family was in the waiting room and I had a spot staged up that I could sit at to post updates immediately following discussions with the OR nurse/doc.  But TCH is still riding the covid lunacy and restricted the waiting room to TWO people per patient, and they are strictly enforcing it.  Dad and mom even ran into an unnamed VP of TCH who made three phone calls on our behalf and wasn't able to move any of those mountains.  All that said, Tori and I would be at the hotel, walk across the street to meet with the nurse for each of the below updates, then have to walk back to the hotel.  Each time, we'd have to wait in the waiting room for the nurse to be ready to meet with us.  I love the abilities the entire TCH staff brings to bear for our son's sake.  But I'll lose my witness if I start talking about the management of the hospital.  They're piling stress on stress on headaches on top of whatever procedure you happen to be here for.  They have the leverage, and I'm not happy about it.

All is stable for the time being, we're going to sign off and quietly sit and stare at Cannon and pray that God will ease his pain.  We thank you all for your continued prayers!!

Good night and much love,

The Kings

2022.05.26 - 4:30 PM

Nothing major at the 2:30 appointment; Dr. Hickey was making final closures and they were monitoring the bleeding that's common for open heart surgery.  

As promised, Dr. Hickey met us at 4:30 and gave us the rundown:

• Everything went as planned.  A new conduit is installed, along with a new pulmonary valve (they opted to use a human valve this time).
• A lot of the vessels/tissues were stuck to the chest cavity.  As they opened his chest, a lot of damage was done to the vessels; these had to be repaired as they went along.  This was done very slowly, and slowed the whole procedure down.
• Since the bottom of the heart is backward (what should be the back of his heart is facing the front of his body), there were a lot of "unexpected" vessels in place that complicated matters.
• To bring him out of anesthesia and get his heart going, they give him "rocket fuel".  This makes the heart work as if he's exercising strenuously.  It was during this time they took more measurements and discovered some pretty severe pressures past the mitral valve.  This hadn't been known previously as there's no way to test this except while they're inside his chest.  He'll be on beta-blockers moving forward to manage how vigorously his heart pumps.  This may also limit his peak exercise capabilities.

Now we know he's out of surgery and moving to ICU.  We're super-excited to get to see him, but have to wait another couple hours for them to set him up in his ICU room (2407).  In the meantime, we're going back to the hotel to say goodbye to Carrie and send her back to Ohio.

2022.05.26 - 1:30 PM

CANNON IS ALREADY OFF THE BYPASS MACHINE!!  This is the best news to hear, as it means his heart is beating on its own again.  It gets easier from here so long as everything stays nominal.  Thank you again for your continued prayers!  We expect another update at 2:30 and the hope is the update after that will be from Dr. Hickey himself.

Dr. Hickey is the primary heart surgeon.  We determined he's smarter than anyone else because he has a British accent.

2022.05.26 - 12:00 PM

Dr. Hickey had to use the groin access for cannulization (where they hook the heart/lung machine to the arteries).  This was always a backup option if he didn't like what he saw inside Cannon's chest.  He's in the process of stitching in the new conduit and valve.  It's somewhere in the order of 120 stitches.  I wonder if doctors take seamstress school.

2022.05.26 - 10:00AM

Just got a notice that Cannon is safely on the heart-lung bypass machine.  They're still doing prep work to get into the chest cavity, so his heart is still going on its own.  Our next update will be around noon.

2022.05.26 - 8:35AM

It's 8:30, and it's been a long day already!  We started at 5, got dressed, got some pics, and headed down to to ride the shuttle to the hospital.  At check-in, we had 8 folks including Carrie, Dad, Mom, and the 5 of us (Dawson is working in LA).  We'd thought they'd allow everyone into the hospital, even though we knew we could only have Tori and I in the surgical waiting room.  We were wrong... they would only allow 2 folks into the hospital with Cannon.  We got one more pic outside with everyone, then let everyone hug on Cannon one more time before heading up.

By 6:30, Cannon was in his robe and we were going through paperwork, consents, and working on the IV (took a couple jabs).  The team was somber, until Tori prayed for God to send someone that would bring some levity to the situation.  In walked Dr. Vener and there goes God answering a prayer.  He brought much humor through quick-witted one-liners and got Cannon smiling big and relaxed.  He quizzed Cannon about how soon Cannon would be challenging Rory McIlroy on the tour, whether Cannon had problems finding shoes for his massive feet, etc... All plans and procedures for the surgery were discussed, we signed Cannon's life away, and kissed him with words of encouragement and affirmations that we'd see him shortly.  This was [again] a tough moment.  The realization that:

• He could die on the table.
• He's in God's hands.
• God promises to work out all things for good for those who believe in Him.
• OUR visions of "good" are sometimes different that God's plans for "good".
• The path to God's "good" is sometimes painful.

Keeping all these things in mind, and God's plan ahead of all our fears, proves to be a challenge.  On top of all that, we have to leave the hospital to hang out with family at the hotel.  The frustration with TCH for their lack of compassion, continuation to ride the covid excuse, and overall inability to endure this with simple logistics... it's hard to describe.

We're currently in our hotel room with the family, waiting for updates from the surgical team through the HIPPA-approved app we now have.  We'll also get updates through the day, but since we're not staying in the tiny waiting room we'll be riding this out in the hotel room primarily.  Meaning we'll be having to hike across the street to get to the hospital for most of the updates (every hour or two).  We'll be updating here as we get updates.  That said, the only update we've received just confirms that Cannon is currently sleeping and being closely monitored by the anesthesia team.  Right now, I expect they're opening his chest and beginning the long process of cutting through the scar tissue from the 2012 surgery.

Thank you to everyone for your prayers and petitions to God for a successful surgery.  We'll update soon!

2022.05.25: T-minus 1 day and counting

We spent the morning in pre-op:

• X-ray (they thought I was crazy for wanting a pic here, they didn't realize I had to get a comparison to a pic we took when he was 6)
• Blood draw
• Research team (approving them to use spare tissue for research)
• Social worker
• Child-life worker
• Dr. Hickey's nurse practitioner explaining the events of surgery-day
• Anesthesia team quizzing us on anything that could prove a challenge to them

After pre-op, we had lunch at Miller's Hamburgers in Scurlock Tower (yum!), hung at the hotel to wait for Mom to show up, then went to the PGA store to let Cannon whack some final balls for a few months.  I hit a 306-yard drive and Cannon was floored.  He'd only been getting to 280.  THEN he stepped up and hit a 311-yard drive.  Out-drove daddy... dangit.  But his smile says it all.

After the PGA store, we went to Pappasitos to get Cannon his last meal before surgery.  We all ate too much, I apologize if no one can get any food for a while.  We cleaned them out.

Then to the hotel for a while, Dad/Mom/Colton went and picked up Carrie from the airport, then we got to bed about 1 AM.

Daddy smacking a 300+ yd drive at the PGA store:

Cannon showing me up with a 311-yd drive:

The delegation that WASN'T allowed into the hospital to support Cannon:

Cannon getting his Xray during pre-op at 6 years old:

Cannon getting his Xray during pre-op at 16 years old:

Cannon waiting for them to get the IV in: