Surgery Success, so far

Declan has successfully survived surgery number six. For the rest of us, success has yet to be determined.

For those who haven't ever experienced surgery (thankfully) here's what our day looked like. Granted, it would be different if it were inpatient, but this fortunately was a relatively quick procedure. We started the morning off right for Declan. He couldn't eat after midnight the night before or drink clear liquids after 11:30 a.m., so we figured if he was going to be grouchy, we'd go ahead and cram as much as possible in the morning. (Callum had the luxury of hanging out with the grandparents for two days.) We started off the morning with a therapy co-treatment, meaning he had speech and occupational therapy at the same time.

Two of his amazing therapists

Right after that, he had his monthly nutrition appointment. Surprisingly, he did amazingly well, especially considering he hadn't eaten since the night before and isn't the biggest fan of juice instead of milk.

I wish I were this happy without food for 12 hours!

We arrived at the hospital at 12:30 and were one of only two families in the waiting room. Apparently Declan was the last scheduled surgery for the day. He was able to spend quite a bit of time cruising the area in the car, which he was a huge fan of.

Can I drive out of here?

We were then called back and they took him just after 2:00. Scott was excited to sit in the room and watch soccer, and I won't lie that it was a bit nice to have a few hours of just sitting around having nothing to have to do (although I could have done without the whole surgery part). After receiving reports that all went well with both the surgery and the hearing test, they finally brought him back to us around 5:00. We were able to get enough apple juice in him that they felt comfortable taking out his IV, and once he was calm enough, they let us leave. If you're wondering what the white thing is by his arm is, it's just the board to hold his arm in place.

Tolerating the juice

We stopped and gave him a bottle of milk in the lobby, which he downed and then promptly fell asleep and slept until early the next morning.

Finally happy after a bottle of milk

The only problem of surgery was the IV, as usual (a story for another day). Needless to say, we counted at least 11 pokes in their attempts to insert it.

My arm is too stiff--I can't put it down!

After the first day, he's been mostly fine with his cast, and he didn't need pain medicine more than that first day. The real issue has been keeping it out of his mouth. We've already had to make two visits back to get it looked at once and then re-wrapped once. *When I started this post, it was once. I've now had to re-wrap it twice myself (thank goodness the lady we visited was realistic enough to give me a bag of extras and show me how to do it if necessary, considering the second time was 10:00 Sunday night), and the latest wrapping looks pretty good. I believe I can now officially add this to my unofficial Dr. resume. Just keep it dry was the only instructions we received--easier said than done for an orally fixated kid who always has his hands in his mouth. We tried a plastic bag and a sock (I literally cannot leave him by himself for more than ten seconds or he has the hand in his mouth again, soaking the cast or is yanking out the gauze with his other hand) and that allowed me three minutes of freedom before he had the sock and bag off and was playing with them and eating the hand again.

I really think that could be a new torture device in prisons everywhere--give a prisoner a small orally-fixated child with a soft cast and tell them they must successfully keep the kid happy while keeping his hand out of his mouth and keep his other hand from yanking the cast. They can't tie it down since he needs to be able to move it around for development and therapies. Oh, and they also have to successfully fix food, eat and do other normal activities (you know, like go to the bathroom) at the same time.

The cast clearly isn't stopping him! He's holding on with the cast hand.

We go back to the hand doctor July 8, which isn't soon enough for me (thankfully only one more day, now that I'm finally getting around to it). Although, it is our wedding anniversary. Nothing says happy anniversary like spending the afternoon at the doctor's office! This is the second year in a row--such is the life with a needy kiddo. Although this year I'll take it, so long as it finally means freedom for all of us.