St Paul Hospital, continued

It's 6am. So far I only have two kids awake so I'll try to finish up the hospital post now.
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I checked into the orthodics area at Gillette Children's hospital. The told us they would find us in the main waiting room when they were ready. We waited 45 minutes before I went back to the desk and asked how much longer it would be before they could see us. The secretary informed me that they had looked for us and paged us and we should have stayed in the waiting room. As nicely as I could, I told her that we - all 5 of us- hadn't moved from our spots in the waiting room for almost an hour, even though it was right over the lunch hour. So then we had to wait some more, I think because they had pulled more patients into the office instead of us. He finally got us in an hour later. He put Zeke's new orthodics (foot/leg braces) on and then began the modifications on them. He drew right on the braces where he would have to cut away the plastic in order to make them fit correctly. He told us it would be another 45 minutes to finish them. I asked him what to do about our physical therapy appointment. He asked what time that appointment was. I let him know that it was at 1:30pm (It was already 2pm) He said to check with them.
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So I herded everyone down to the physical therapy department and chatted with their secretary. I let her know what was going on and she very nicely juggled schedules and re-scheduled us for a 3pm appointment. Then back to the big waiting room we went.
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We finally got Zeke's braces on and fitted correctly around 3:05pm and quickly went to physical therapy.
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Zeke had fallen asleep during the long wait for his braces and hadn't had anything more than snacks and yougurt so he was extremely crabby. That doesn't make for a good physical therapy appointment. We pretty much just let him sulk in his wheelchair while the therapist and I talked. She gave me lots of good information and answered my questions about what Zeke can and cannot do. He is now able to stand with assistance, as long as he is wearing his braces. We are starting to do exercises twice a day to bend his knees and help strengthen his leg muscles. We came home with a little walker. As soon as Zeke is able to stand on his own and take steps, he can use it. We'll be keeping the wheelchair around for quite a while for longer distances. It'll take a while to work back to where he was but he already seems so much taller when he stands just because he is able to stand up straight!
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While working with PT, we ran into several "old friends" from our hospital stay two years ago. I got to visit for a few minutes with Zeke's hospital school teacher and Dave the lunch guy. I love that they remember Zeke!
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We left PT and the hospital around 4:15pm on Thursday and had to cross the Cities during rush hour. It took us a couple of hours just to get out of town. The trip home was pretty uneventful, just long, and we made it back home by 9:30pm.
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Zeke is really excited to begin walking again.
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