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After Dr. Kim, Joe's neurologist in Ocala told us that in his opinion Joe would be an excellent candidate for brain surgery to possibly eliminate Joe's seizures we were excited to proceed to find out all we could about this surgery and have Joe evaluated as a possible candidate as soon as possible.

He recommended the surgery be done at Shands Hospital in Gainesville or Tampa General – he assured us both were excellent. I put Dr. Kim on the spot and point blankly asked him, “If this were your son who was going to have this surgery, where would you take him? We want the best no matter where in the country that doctor is.”

Without hesitation he told me he would take him own child to Tampa General. They have one of the best neuro-surgical units in the country and the most state-of-the-art equipment. He said the staff in the neurological center at TGH was the absolute best neurological staff and team anywhere.

We contacted the doctor in Tampa and set up and appointment for September 20th. We hated to wait several months but that was the soonest available appointment with Dr. Benbadis. He was going to meet with us and start the process of evaluating Joe to determine if he really was a candidate for this surgery.

Joe's appointment in Tampa was early in the morning and we had to drive an hour and a half from Ocala. We had concerns about traffic being tied up on the interstate or arriving in Tampa and not being able to find the doctor's office in the huge Tampa General complex on time. It was imperative that we were on time for this most-important meeting for Joe.

We decided to go to Tampa the night before and get a hotel 10 minutes from the hospital. In fact we decided to go early in the day so we would have the afternoon to relax and have fun the day before the appointment.

As soon as we got to Tampa and located the place for Joe's appointment in the morning we decided it would be fun to go to Clearwater Beach for the afternoon. Although we didn't have our bathing suits with us it would still fun to walk on the beach and stroll along Pier 60.

There is a turtle statue on Clearwater Beach. Bill has had his picture taken by the statue and so have I (several years ago) so Joe didn't have a choice – it was his turn to go stand by the statue and smile.

One of Joe's favorite things to do is feed birds. I have pictures of him feeding zebra doves in Hawaii, a black swan also in Hawaii, ducks and all kinds of birds. Joe has enjoyed feeding birds since he was a toddler.

We had stale donuts with chocolate frosting in the car so Bill and Joe broke them into bites and threw them to the birds, thinking the birds would catch them mid-air or swoop to the ground to scoop them up. But they didn't – they flew right over to Joe and Bill and landed on their arms – sometimes two or three pigeons or seagulls at a time! They both had a ball feeding the birds!


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