5 Tips for Preparing Your Superhero for Surgery Day

September 27, 2016 Michelle Cuthrell

Before we adopted a child with medical special needs, hospital stays were a scary foreign concept to me. I’d only ever stayed overnight in one to deliver our first two children, and I’d never held the hands of a child who’d undergone surgery.

And then we brought home the little boy we affectionately call “Superman,” and for a season, hospitals became our second home.

At age 5, Superman has had 14 casts and 10 surgeries/procedures under anesthesia, most of them while living inside our home. And after parking in children’s hospital garages at 5 a.m. more times than I care to remember in this lifetime, I’ve learned a few things — mostly through too-little-coffee surgery mornings, clearly a rookie mistake — about preparing myself and my superhero for surgery.

I invite you to join me HERE at Beautiful in His Time to read about five great ways you can prepare yourself and your child for surgery.

Grabbing Hold of God's Best -- Surgery May Be Required

May 13, 2016 Michelle Cuthrell

Fourteen casts, 10 procedures/surgeries (half of them completed in our care) and two years into our family, Superman has totally lived up to his nickname.

From the moment he entered the Cuthredible league, he was not only faster than a speeding bullet (which is why I sold my morals for the monkey backpack leash I promised I would never attach to my kin) — he was stronger than steel. And he didn’t let ANY of his medical conditions, including the missing radius and underdeveloped thumb on his right hand, keep him from flying. Or keeping up with two older brothers.

Superman is Special: The Blessing of Special Needs Adoption

May 11, 2016 Michelle Cuthrell

Before we ever brought our son home from China, we called him “Superman.”

Maybe it was because we come from a house full of boys, or maybe it was because capes and superheroes are just part of our Cuthrell culture. Or maybe it was because Superhero 1 and Superhero 2 had already reserved Batman and Spiderman as their preferred superheroes of choice, and we were running out of options for superheroes popular enough to feature their own line of bedding that didn’t clash with Batman and Spiderman in the room where all three boys would soon sleep.

One of three.

But the first time we viewed the medical file of the 2-year-old little boy with the white arm sling living half a world away in China, God made it clear — this was our son. This was our Superman. And Superman, like Clark Kent himself, was “special.”

Blog

Before we adopted a child with medical special needs, hospital stays were a scary foreign concept to me. I’d only ever stayed overnight in one to deliver our first two children, and I’d never held the hands of a child who’d undergone surgery.

And then we brought home the little boy we affectionately call “Superman,” and for a season, hospitals became our second home.

I invite you to join me HERE at Beautiful in His Time to read about five great ways you can prepare yourself and your child for surgery.