today was the big day for our trip to the detroit area for a specialist eye consult to see if little odin needed anymore eye surgery.

odin did great on the trip and didn't complain once during the 2.5 hour car trip or the wait in the waiting room. after we were ushered into the exam room, kris decided to read him a little bit from white fang.

she read him the entire chapter of the law of meat, which seemed an oddly appropriate choice of reading material; he always seems so attentive when he's being read to and it's fun to watch his facial expressions.

right as kris finished reading from the white fang chapter, the resident ( doctor in training ) came in and began to examine his eyes. as we've seen before the exam involves putting dilation drops in his eyes and then turning the lights down low while holding a magnifying lens above his eye and shining a bright light into the eyeball which will illuminate his retina.

the junior doctor immediately exclaimed how beautiful a job was done with the ROP surgery. he said a couple more times that the laser surgery looked very, very nice.

he also said that little odin is one of the most well behaved patients he's seen, which made we wonder if he just says that to everyone.

while the resident seemed fairly positive about the condition of odin's eyes, the final judgements would be passed after the exam by the senior doctor on staff.

after the resident did his exam, the apparently world renowned antonio "tony" capone ( and yes, i really wanted to ask if he was related to al capone, but decided he was probably sick of getting asked the same question by all his new patients ) came in and did his assessment. he also immediately commented on how great the odin's post-ROP surgery eyes looked ( kudos to dr. droste! ).

after about a minute of examining odin's eyes, he quickly said, "perfect! his eyes are perfect. no problems." and the ridges caused by the ROP that caused the initial concern have already dissapeared!

wooohooo! no more eye surgery will be needed! not even anymore laser surgery!

just in case you were wondering, at least as far as odin is concerned, there really is no better way to celebrate not having to have any more eye surgery than by having a bottle while wearing your new crocheted knit cap given to you by a very thoughtful friend. there really isn't.


on our way back home from the eye exam, we stopped by grandma and grandpa snowdeal's house ( they live relatively far away from our house, but relatively close to where we needed to go for the eye exam ) and told them the great news!

during our visit grandpa snowdeal was tested on his bottle feeding skills and passed with flying colors.

now if he'd only be willing to take the diaper changing test :-)

so today went quite well and we're hoping we'll have as much good news to report tommorrow after his hernia surgery. we're taking him to the hospital at 7:30 a.m. and he'll be prepped for a 9:00 a.m. surgery. if everything goes as planned, he'll be out of surgery by 11 a.m., but we'll all be spending the night at the hospital to make sure that he has a smooth recovery. hernia surgery is pretty routine, as far as surgeries go, but we'll be quite happy when he's off the vent and back home safe and sound.

please feel free to think a good thought tommorrow at 9 a.m. eastern as little odin is getting wheeled off to the operating room :-)