Recovering

Isaac is in a lot of pain today - he is a 10 on the smiley face pain scale. He has orders for morphine and toradol and he's getting them pretty much as soon as he can get them.

He slept all night with the exception of some breakthrough pain and woke up this morning for about an hour. I showed him toys, he held his leads, and I snuggled him. I even got one fleeting smile.

He is doing really well with the NG tube. Not a lot is coming out and he has some tiny bowel sounds, so he may be getting to eat tomorrow, which would be the recovery fast track! He had some tachycardia off and on last night and is still having high respiratory rates off and on. The tachycardia seemed linked to pain.

Isaac is about as young as you can be on this ward - a general post surgery ward. Babies under 4 months go to the PICU or NICU. The nurses are all loving him.

We got Isaac a teddy at the gift shop and it has been wonderful aid to help him sleep. His arms are still splinted, so he can't rub his eyes or hair - his usual self soothing techniques. We put the teddy by his hand and he slept all night holding its fur. We have also been playing his Disney Lullabies around the clock.

The food here is the best of all three hospitals I've ever been to - everything seems very fresh and healthy but tasty too.

Here's Isaac in the waiting room. He was in the happiest silly mood - talking and laughing.

After that we went back in the pre-op area and did vitals and met with the admitting nurse, the OR nurse, the surgeon and the anesthesiologist. We dressed Ike in a little gown and then kissed him good-bye and watched his little blond head bobbing down the hall in the OR RN's arms (cue Mama tears!).

We took our pager and went to the gift shop, bathroom, and McDonalds and at the end of our meal we got paged and went back to the waiting area for an update. We found out they were doing the Ladd's and then we waited another 45 min. or so until the surgeon came and found us and took us back to the consult room where he reviewed the surgery and answered our questions. (Our pediatrician recommended this surgeon and we are so happy with him! He is really easy to talk to and exudes calmness.)

Then we went and waited some more for Isaac to wake up. After a loooooong wait we were paged and met Isaac to go up to his room. The Dr. said that post anesthesia sleepiness has a lot to do with the quality of the child's sleep before the procedure. Isaac's surgery was right around nap time, so he continued his nap afterward, while also fighting to take off all his leads.

Here we are up in his room.
Here's Isaac and his new teddy. The gown is sort of all over the place.
Here's the incision - small for a grown up, but pretty big for a little guy like Isaac. It has 4 layers of sutchers that will dissolve over the next 6 months.
...and here's Isaac on Thursday, his 5 month birthday. He'll be smiling again like this soon!



Friday RN - Maria
Friday Night RN - Tammy
Saturday RN - Erica