lmintzer
12-08-2004, 10:08 PM
I want to thank the many of you who offered kind words, thoughts, and prayers for our little guy and for all of us. I am always touched by the generosity of spirit that is conveyed on this board.
Jack is home now and sleeping in his own bed. The whole hospitalization and surgery experience was as good as this kind of thing can be. We feel very lucky that we are in the "right" professions to get the best of care for our kiddos.
A short summary: he went to bed comfortably with dh there and slept well. In the a.m., he was happy. He asked twice about eating breakfast but didn't seem too disappointed (surprisingly enough) when dh said no and explained why. Thankfully, the surgeon decided to put him as first case. I don't think it was our asking that did this, but just that Jack's case would be short and there wasn't a good reason not to just get it done.
I was heartsick to not be there this a.m. for him, but really, I don't think my not being there hurt Jack. He had dh, whom he is extremely close to as well as our good friend Rachel who is a peds. intensive care fellow. She happened to have been on call last night (how lucky is that), and she came by and played with him and went to pre-op with them this a.m.
Jack did pretty well there--a few minor meltdowns and a little anticipatory anxiety, but he drank his Versed without a problem which made him happily groggy. From that point, it was no problem to get him to breathe into the mask for the inhalation induction.
He had a bit harder of time in recovery, I'm told. He cried, asked to stand up before he was ready. I think they may have tried to reinsert his IV but seem to have given up (what probably happened was that he pulled it out and they tried only once more). The poor guy has bruises on each hand and a foot and the crook of his arm, so they seem to have had some trouble getting venus access. At least he won't remember post-op too well.
For the rest of the day, he was groggy and irritable off and on, but he asked to eat once we were discharged (around 4:00 p.m.) and was given "chicken and french fries" from McDonalds (yep, first thing he wanted was junk food). We got him to bed, and he's been sleeping nicely since 7:30.
He never ceases to amaze me with just how sharp he is. He's a little distrustful of us, asking many times if we were "going to put more medicine in his bottom" (referring to 5 nights of Fleet enemas prior to hospitalization--sorry if TMI). We say no and explain why. Then, he says "I don't want to see any more doctors." We ask why. He says "Because ANOTHER doctor might say I have to have medicine in my bottom." Wow! That's pretty good abstract reasoning.
At any rate, this is getting long, and I'm totally wiped out.
We'll keep you posted on how he does and on how the tests done come out. We're trying to rule out a few "zebras" as they're called, even though this is most likely just very bad "fucntional constipation" (in other words, caused by holding behavior).
Jack is home now and sleeping in his own bed. The whole hospitalization and surgery experience was as good as this kind of thing can be. We feel very lucky that we are in the "right" professions to get the best of care for our kiddos.
A short summary: he went to bed comfortably with dh there and slept well. In the a.m., he was happy. He asked twice about eating breakfast but didn't seem too disappointed (surprisingly enough) when dh said no and explained why. Thankfully, the surgeon decided to put him as first case. I don't think it was our asking that did this, but just that Jack's case would be short and there wasn't a good reason not to just get it done.
I was heartsick to not be there this a.m. for him, but really, I don't think my not being there hurt Jack. He had dh, whom he is extremely close to as well as our good friend Rachel who is a peds. intensive care fellow. She happened to have been on call last night (how lucky is that), and she came by and played with him and went to pre-op with them this a.m.
Jack did pretty well there--a few minor meltdowns and a little anticipatory anxiety, but he drank his Versed without a problem which made him happily groggy. From that point, it was no problem to get him to breathe into the mask for the inhalation induction.
He had a bit harder of time in recovery, I'm told. He cried, asked to stand up before he was ready. I think they may have tried to reinsert his IV but seem to have given up (what probably happened was that he pulled it out and they tried only once more). The poor guy has bruises on each hand and a foot and the crook of his arm, so they seem to have had some trouble getting venus access. At least he won't remember post-op too well.
For the rest of the day, he was groggy and irritable off and on, but he asked to eat once we were discharged (around 4:00 p.m.) and was given "chicken and french fries" from McDonalds (yep, first thing he wanted was junk food). We got him to bed, and he's been sleeping nicely since 7:30.
He never ceases to amaze me with just how sharp he is. He's a little distrustful of us, asking many times if we were "going to put more medicine in his bottom" (referring to 5 nights of Fleet enemas prior to hospitalization--sorry if TMI). We say no and explain why. Then, he says "I don't want to see any more doctors." We ask why. He says "Because ANOTHER doctor might say I have to have medicine in my bottom." Wow! That's pretty good abstract reasoning.
At any rate, this is getting long, and I'm totally wiped out.
We'll keep you posted on how he does and on how the tests done come out. We're trying to rule out a few "zebras" as they're called, even though this is most likely just very bad "fucntional constipation" (in other words, caused by holding behavior).