Aly’s appointment, to get her stitches removed, went well yesterday.  There were a couple of areas that caused pain because they didn’t come out easily, but other than that it was smooth sailing.  He did a short check of Aly’s vision and there is a bit of improvement, but she is still lacking peripheral vision.  He was very happy that she was able to read a paragraph in a magazine.  He said sometimes with nerve damage they are unable to follow the sentences to the next line.  He is still hopeful that more of her vision will return, but it is the typical waiting game that we’ve come to know.  We also found out that Aly has a few titanium plates in her head.  I figured there had to be something holding the piece of skull they removed and put back in, but it is one of those questions us common folk don’t think to ask.  Because she has these, she doesn’t have to go through an additional process of putting fiducials in her head.  Fiducials are tiny little screws, about the size of screws put in eyeglasses that they typically use to help guide the radiation beam.  The screws can be seen on an x-ray so they can better guide the beam to the exact location.  Yes, you are all going to learn along with us!  I’ve learned more medical terms than I’ve ever wanted to know.  Aly needs to go in today for yet another MRI to help measure where the plates are exactly and help give Jacksonville more information to get things set up.   

We are waiting for the call from Jacksonville to tell us when we need to arrive down there.  By the way, we’ve had many ask what hospital Aly will be at.  To clarify, the radiation treatments are an outpatient treatment.  She will have to go in each day for about ½ hour.  The main part of that ½ hour is getting her positioned just right.  The radiation treatment itself takes about 5 minutes.  Aly will be going to Shands Hospital which is a part of the University of Florida, Jacksonville.    I’m just praying that they don’t call one day and tell us to be down there the next week!  I’ve got the feeling that is what will happen and I’m not looking forward to that mad rush!  It is not like we can go ahead and rent a place to live now and then wait for the call.  Speaking of which, if anyone knows the Jacksonville area and can give us tips on good areas to live that would be helpful.  Or if anyone knows of friends or family that have a house, condo or apartment to rent to us that would be helpful as well.  I know there are a couple of friends already working on it for us.  It is amazing that there are so many willing to help!  We received a list of possibilities from the hospital there and we have a couple of ideas that we are leaning towards, but haven’t made a final decision.  The other thing we really didn’t think through when choosing Florida is the hurricane season!  It looks as though one is going to possibly hit this week!  I guess we’ll hope for the best!