Ben's surgery and post-op

This pic is post-op day 2. In an effort to get him to drink I tried some water in a small little cup. He just held it though, no drinking :(

So I learned the day before that we had the sucky time of an 11am surgery. I was anxious about how I was going to deal with a very hungry Ben in the car and then in the pre-op clinic since I had to arrive one and a half hours early. My child is used to eating very promptly at 7am. Well, that turned to out to be the least of my worries. We left at a little past 8am on Thursday aiming to arrive at 9:30 like we were told. I had just made this SAME exact drive on Monday for his pre-op visit so I knew it took 1 hr 15 mins tops to be parked and in the clinic. Not so much on Thursday. It was raining and I guess that slows down/causes traffic because boy did I ever hit it! At 9:30 I was no where near the clinic and I'm starting to freak out!! I called the clinic from the car, told them we were in traffic, and asked what was going to happen if we were really late. She said, "Well, they haven't called you yet so we'll see you when you get here". Ben has been awesome the whole time. He fussed a little but was better than I expected on the 2+ hour car ride, maybe he was in a hunger coma?!

I get there at 10:15am and the lady at the desk tells me they HAVE already called for Ben and she'll have to see if they are still ready to take him or if they already took someone else. ARGHHH...dumb traffic! I'm starting to panic, who knows how long this is going to take?! She says they're still ready so we get whooshed off to take a few vitals, only to find out he's got a slight temp of 99.7 - AAAAHHHH!!! I tell them that I do have a cold and so far he's been fine although he did sneeze a bunch in the car. The nurse says they'll send us up to the OR and let the anesthesiologist make the call. At this point, I'm so stressed out and the prospect that after 2 hours we might have to turn around and drive back home was a too much for me - I'm literally bawling as they escort me to the OR. I'm sure people are thinking "This lady is a lunatic" but I felt better than I was pregnant and at least didn't look so psycho considering people know preggo mommas are emotional.

We get up there, they assess him, and say it's ok, their thermometer only read 99.2. I can't go back with him to get the anesthesia since I'm pregnant and I'm just ready for them to take him since I'm still crying on and off and just want him to go so I can try to calm down. No sense in delaying the inevitable. By this time, Ben thinks things are grand. He's laughing and playing with the nurses, watching TV, lots of fun stuff. He goes to the nurse without a problem and away they go. I get sent to the waiting room to hang out for an hour until they come get me. An hour ticks away fairly fast, the doc says everything went great, and he's not got a clear airway! Perfect. They send me to the ICU clinic where Ben is spending the night. He snagged an ICU bed since I've previously witnessed sleep apnea (where he stops breathing for a second while sleeping). The ICU turns out to be a pain in my ass...more on that later.

I have to wait 10 minutes until they're ready for me to see him. When I do, he's fully awake and doing better than when he awoke from his adenoid surgery so I'm pleasanly surprised. He drank a tiny bit of water and I just hung out trying to make him as comfortable as possible while trying to convince him to eat a popscicle or have some more water. They kept asking me, "how do you think he's doing pain-wise? Are we controlling it?" I'm like, I don't know, I think he's fine otherwise wouldn't he be screaming?!?!?? It was up to me if and when we were going to the pain meds I found out. Oh and also how much we were going to give him. How do you decide this?! I'm not a freaking doctor/nurse? We started slow with the morphine to see how he'd tolerate it and ended up upping it to the full dose after a few hours of no eating and no sleep. He finally drifted off into drug-induced la-la land around 3pm.

I quickly found out that the ICU sucked for me. Think of it like an ER with curtained rooms, that's all it was folks, and we were about to spend the entire night there. Not only could I not eat in the room (I could drink whatever I wanted though?!), there wasn't even a bathroom in the ICU and I couldn't use my cell phone either. So I had to go all the way out past the main desk to go pee and turn on my phone. Au bon pain and a cafeteria were seven floors below. So anytime Ben was sleeping I rushed off to make a phone call to Eric for an update, talk to Cal briefly, pee, and eat. I scarfed down food and rushed back up in case Ben woke up. He slept for a couple hours and then we started in again trying to get him to eat or drink. After BEGGING them to find something he could use a spoon for and do by himself, they brought me a cup of vanilla ice cream. Ben was not happy with me shoving things in his face (popscicles, sippy cup, etc) so he was THRILLED when he saw the ice cream. They kept telling me, "Oh he's just irritable because his throat hurts". Yeah, well, that might be, but he was also STARVING! He downed two ice cream cups and some water at 5pm. The nurse was amazed. We had to order all other food since they only had popscicles and thankfully those ice creams in the ICU. It took FOREVER to get there but a couple hours (yes, hours) later when more food finally did arrive Ben wolfed down a pudding and 3 ounces of yogurt. Sweet! So that was 7pm...a little morphine and an hour later he was back to sleep. Again, my chance to eat! Off I went. There was a point in that 5-7pm window too where he was laughing and playing with a stethoscope for a good 30 mins. There was a TV there but he wasn't much interested in it and turned it off every time I tried to distract him with it (he could reach the buttons).

I should mention that at 7pm our night nurse came - not so thrilled about her. I had younger female nurses in their 20's the whole time. I heard this one, Kristen, say she was 26 later on and I had my moments where I thought, "Geez, I could really use a nurse who's in her 40's and had the experience of a couple of kids". It would have been helpful. Kristen didn't seem to have the knack of knowing when she was helping and when she should just GET LOST! which I had to tell her more than a few times. My favorite line of hers was, "Ben, all this crying is just irritating your throat". Umm...yeah, thanks, that's going to stop him. Nincumpoop!

At midnight, we had the unfortunate event of Ben throwing up all over the place. He had woken up and I was holding him and all of a sudden I heard that cough where you just know the puke is coming. Before I could say, he's going to throw up, he had. It was all down the back of my sweatshirt and on the floor. Janitor! No biggie, just disappointing since he'd eaten and now a bunch just came back up. He went back to sleep only to be woken at 2am with a HUGE commotion and flurry of a little girl being rushed to the ICU. In came doctors, nurses, loud beeping machines, bright lights, and shouts of all sorts of orders. Who wouldn't wake up?! After all that, she was only there 30 mins before being taken to the OR I think.

Ben slept from about 2:30 - 6:30am waking maybe a time or two. I can't really remember since I was trying to get some sleep myself. But for the most part he was quiet and restful. He woke in the morning, got his last shot of morphine, and ate another ice cream with a sip or two of milk. The resident came in around 8am and said we could go home since he'd eaten already. This later got confused by the ENT doc who said, "Let's wait and see if he eats one more time". Well, at this point in the morning (8am) Ben had pretty much had it. To tell you the truth, I had too, so I don't know who wanted to get out of the hospital more, him or me! But he became irrate and unmanageable. He previously would lay down with me in his crib and sleep when he got tired but he didn't want to do that now. He was crawling over me and trying to climb out of the crib! He didn't want me to restrain him in any way so he was thrashing about and just being difficult. He kept saying "All done, All doooooooonne" and trying to pull off all the monitoring stickies and the IV. Forget about trying to eat again. When jell-O and pudding finally came he was so worked up it wasn't even worth trying although I did. Eventually, he would ONLY be calm if I was standing and holding him, kind of like when a newborn has that uncanny sense of when you try to sit and hold them and wakes up and cries. Well, that was Ben except he was awake.

After two hours of thrashing and holding and just a very difficult time, especially for me since I'm 33 weeks pregnant and trying to hold this 24 lb child for hours at a time, I couldn't take it anymore. I looked at the nurse and said, "First of all, I have to pee! Second, I can't do this anymore. Either give this child some morphine so he can calm down and sleep and we'll stay here longer OR let me go home." Luckily, she totally agreed we weren't getting anywhere. This was a different nurse now, by the way, not the dreaded Kristen, her shift was over. She even though it was confusing that there seemed to be conflicting opinions on whether he needed to eat again or not. Ultimately, they said if I thought he'd do better at home eating and drinking (I DID!) then he was fine from a medical perspect to go! Hooray! It took another hour or so to get discharged but we were home by 1pm on Friday!!

Ben was SO happy to be home! He immediately ate a slice of cheese, a banana, and an ice cream, and drank some water. He was very excited to see Cal and all his toys in the playroom. For dinner he ate watermelon, pudding, and some milk and all was well! He made it until about 6:30pm until he wanted to go to bed. He actually tried to climb IN his crib that's how much he wanted to go. Miraculously, he slept all the way until 7:30pm. We woke him at 10pm and 2am to give him the tylenol with codeine just so he didn't wake in the morning in so much pain that it would be impossible to eat. I thought once we woke him up he'd be awake for a little bit before settling back to sleep but nope. It was almost impossible to wake him the first time. He sucked down the medicine and was happy for me to lay him back in his crib. That was that!

POST-OP DAY 2 - (Saturday) - He did pretty well yesterday. He can't make it more than a few hours without napping or at least laying down. So he slept from 10:15am-1:30pm yesterday. Unfortunately eating didn't go so well and all he had was 2 puddings and 1 1/2 pancakes saturated with butter and syrup. Clever on my part I must say because that made him thirsty and he drank a decent amount of milk! He took a bath and then had a rough patch near dinner time where he could only be held. Off to bed at 6:15pm and didn't wake again until 7:45 this morning! Again, took his medicine twice at night barely waking up and then right back to bed! So I can't really complain about that! He's having enough wet diapers that he's not dehydrated and I just take what I can get when he'll eat! He seems to eat when he gets hungry enough so I'm not too worried.

POST-OP DAY 3 - (Sunday) - Today seems to be following yesterday. I truly feel for any parent who has feeding issues with their children on a daily basis. I feel like a complete maniac - worried that he's not eating enough and that if he doesn't "actively swallow" that it's going to take longer to heal. I set at least 5 things in front of him hoping he'll pick at least one but most times when he sees me going to put him in his chair at the table he freaks out knowing it's going to hurt to eat. So far today he's eaten a pudding (this seems to be the food of choice) and I actually stood in the kitchen and held him while he spooned Jello-O into his mouth and on the floor and on his shirt. He ended up getting half of the cup in his mouth and down his throat so whatever it takes!! Anyways, trying to keep mealtimes light and fun. I feel like when he senses me getting stressed and really trying to force him to eat that that just makes him reject the food even if he is hungry. So we're trying to make it HIS idea to eat and generally ignore him when he starts to. Right now he's been napping for a couple hours so hopefully he'll be in a good mood for lunch when he wakes up!