Last Day at Home, then Cincinnati Bound

Today was our last full day at home. Tomorrow, Tillery and Alana will head to Cincinnati to begin prep for surgery. Joe, Luke, Nana and Poppo will join us in Cincinnati on Thursday evening. Here is what our day will look like on Thursday:

We will wake up early for a big breakfast because Tillery cannot eat anything after 8:00 a.m. (until after her 5 pm scan!!!)
Meet with neurosurgery at 1:00 p.m. to ask final questions and sign all consent papers for surgery and anesthesia.
At 4:00, we report to radiology to get ready for a 5:00 p.m. MRI that will include having her head marked for surgery.
Following the MRI, Tillery will be admitted to A7, the neurosurgery floor of Cincinnati Children's Hospital. They want to keep an eye on her through the night and will be able to have her prepped and ready for surgery on Friday.

Tillery's surgery is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. Friday morning. They expect her to be in the PICU for 3 days and then to return to A7 for another 3 days. All of these days are long and exhausting. We appreciate all prayers and good thoughts you want to send our way.

If you'd like to join our Stitch-a-thon, donating $1 per stitch to pediatric brain tumor research in our honor, we will probably not have a number of stitches until early next week. Comment below if you are in for the Stitch-a-thon and we'll keep you posted!

Here are some pictures of our last day home...it was a busy one!

We met this Smokies mascot in the oncology clinic at ETCH. Tillery was skeptical and wanted to know "how did he get a superhero cape?" Good question!

One last snack from the ETCH oncology snack basket!

This afternoon we went to Luke's class and talked about Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation and how they help kids like Tillery. We read the story book about Alex and her Lemonade Stand. The kids all got coin boxes to take home with them and we all enjoyed some lemonade while coloring ourselves at a lemonade stand.

Free Pancakes on National Pancake Day with the Vaughns! (Notice Tillery sat on their side of the table!) They were taking donations to our local children's hospital so it was a win-win.

Tillery got to meet some beauty queens. She's had a longstanding friendship for Miss Haven Wolfe who we met at the Ronald McDonald House but Tillery wasn't so sure about these new friends. She asked "How did you get to be a princess?" (She's really not taking anyone's accessories for real today. She wants to see some credentials!)