The Mullan Family!

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Team Jack 2011 came out strong again this year for Melbourne's 'Run for the Kids' fun run which we have supported since it's very first year. Obviously Jack has received a lot of care from the Royal Children's Hospital and we've been incredibly lucky to have the very best doctors and nurses look after him and it not cost us anything. We're incredibly grateful to have such wonderful medical care available so it's the least we can do by participating in their fun run. And it's such a great day!! Our team is steadily growing too which makes it even more fun. (and as far as Jack's concerned, the train ride in isn't bad either ....! Above we're waiting on the train platform)

Here's some of our newer team members Leah and Ebony, Kerry and Abby (hope I got that right?!) with our veteran team member Sammy Couper!

It's such a great day and anyone wanting to join in the fun with us is always welcome! It feels really great to be supporting such a wonderful cause and Jack and Lucy really enjoy it. Speaking of which, we have the Melbourne Marathon coming up in October which again CPEC are one of the major charities. We'd love any more team members so me let me know if you're interested!! Oh and don't think you have to run it, this year we're doing the 3km walk which is like a walk in the park so you can do that or if you're up for a bit of run then you can do the harder courses - Craig and Sam are leading the way on those ones!

A Trip to Sydney with Granny....

In March we decided it was time to spoil my Mum (Granny) for all the extra time she spends helping us out with a trip to Sydney to show her the famous Greenhouse by Joost in an amazing spot in Circular Quay. So it was off in a plane which Jack and Lucy just love!

Jack uses an upper torso harness to help him with sitting up. He seriously loves plane rides, and any other kind of public transport!

Here he is getting a little more familiar with the safety instructions!

And after settling in at our hotel, we decided to take a walk down to the Greenhouse for dinner. The sights are pretty amazing!

Here's the entry to the Greenhouse, see the 'Oprah House', as Lucy calls it, in the background!

And the view from the rooftop garden.

And here we are enjoying a couple of meals in the Greenhouse, all delicious food! We were particularly looking forward to enjoying some of their donuts!!

We even took a trip on the ferry to Manly beach where on such a beautiful day, Lucy loved playing in the water! Jack was exhausted so whilst we spent some time on the beach, he spent the afternoon sleeping on Granny's lap in the closest cafe!

It was a beautiful afternoon!

And lastly, here is Lucy having a shoulder ride from our awesome friend Joost. She was particularly impressed with his Greenhouse restaurant, telling us on the way home that she thinks that God made some of Sydney and Joost made the rest!!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Jack's second lot of hip surgery

As you may have seen on previous posts, last year Jack had hip osteotomies (see osteotomy)where they cut the top of the femurs, rotate the femoral head and then pin it back together and make sure the femur is then sitting in the socket at the right angle and fully in the socket (very layman's description quite obviously!). So at the end of February, Jack had plate removal surgery so that meant they then took the pins out. They also lengthened his hamstrings and gave him some more botox in his hamstrings.

Here we are in the waiting room - poor kid had to fast from 7am and they didn't take him in until 3.30pm. And he didn't complain once.

And he we are waiting for the surgeon to come and take him in for surgery. Again, he's such a brave kid. Happy go lucky and just brave as brave can be. It was Lucy's first time coming in to the hospital on the day of surgery but she wanted to know what happens and I really want her to be aware of what her brother goes through. And she had to be brave too. At one stage, when I explained to her that the doctor was going to come and take him away into the operating theatre, she looked at me with tears in her eyes and her shaky little voice said, 'I don't want them to take my Jack away Mum'. So with tears welling up in MY eyes by this stage, I told her to look and see how brave Jack was being and that we had to be the same. Which she certainly was.

Nothing like listening to a little Coldplay to take the pain away...!

And here is the so called 'bed' we get to sleep on beside him. It is literally like sleeping on an ironing board but of course there is no way we'd allow him to be on his own. I really hope the beds for the parents in the new hospital are better - every parent deserves it!!

This is his first sit in his wheelchair. At this stage it's very difficult to move him and position him. And he'd had to be so brave the day before. He had an epidural to help with the pain relief however it had started to leak so he had a very sudden onset of pain and he was hysterical (very understandably!!). Drugs came flying from every which direction which resulted in him being in La La land for the rest of the day however we managed to get it all under control the next day.

And what better to help with your recovery than a bit of love and affection from your sister - and she really loves her big brother!! As we all do - you're amazing Jackie boy, just amazing.

Cousin love...

And then it's Mummy's turn for a birthday!

Lucy turns big 4!!

On the 20th January, our baby girl turned 4 - can't believe it. Anyway, our Lucy is such a girly girl and there was nothing else for it but a fairy party to be had. So we had 'Tanzi the Fairy Godmother' come. She played all sorts of games with the kids ... er, I mean fairies (plus one Buzz Lightyear!).

And then next was one of the most exciting parts - beautiful face painting!!

And here are some of the beautifully painted fairies with the birthday girl...

And of course the big brother had to have his face painted too

And lastly the birthday cake, a fairy in fairyland! We're so proud of our little fairy princess - we love you Lucy!!

A Christmas Holiday Trip to Howlong...

So over the holidays between Christmas and New Years, we packed up the campervan and took a trip to a little town called Howlong on the Murray River where our lovely friends Bill & Tez live (Bill being a girl in case you don't know her!!). We had one extremely hot day or two so we took a couple of trips down to the Howlong Pool.

And here's our little girl (who by the way has never had swimming lessons!!) jumping in the deep end. She just loves swimming and it's something that her and Dad try and do a lot.