Spencie's Big Day

We made it home last night! Yea!

Spencer did great. The surgery went perfectly, his doctor/surgeon was very pleased with how smoothly everything went and says he should be better than new in a few weeks!

Here's Spencer's surgery story (mostly for journaling purposes, so it will probably be long!).

The drama started the night before as I realized I had a bladder infection (sorry if that's TMI). Of course I had to get one 12 hours before I had to spend 48 hours in a hospital with my son. Ergh. Fortunaly I have the best doctor (who is also my uncle) who took pity on me and called a prescription in for me the next morning. It still took awhile for the antibiotic to kick in, so it was a lovely morning and afternoon making a gazillion trips to the bathroom.

On Monday we got to the hospital at 11:30 and did all of Spencer's pre-op stuff. They weighed him, took his blood pressure, took his temperature, asked us a million medical questions, and then gave him a quick physical. He had a minor red throat, so they had to give him a strep test (even though I was positive he just had some minor allergies), the test came back negative, so off to surgery prep we went.

(Notice the five stickers he stuck right on his shirt!)

Here's where they gave Spencer his special jammies (which he hated at first...probably because the pants are a non-masculine peach color) and then some "giggle juice." This stuff was great, it calmed him right down, making him a little loopy, but it made getting him ready all the easier.

They had to put a little monitor on his toe that made it glow red. At first Spencer was MAD that they put it on, but then I told him he looked like he had a cool Lightning McQueen toe and he was alright after that.

I'm all about child psychology. :)

Once he was all ready I sat him on the bed/crib and the nurses told him he was going to go on a little train ride down the hall (to the operating room). He was all smiles once they told him that. Kyle and I walked him down the hall, gave him a quick kiss and then watched him until he rolled out of sight.

After 3 1/2 hours in the waiting room, they finally told us that one of us could go back to the recovery room with him. I went back to find him sound asleep. The nurse told me she'd tried waking him up, but he was completely out. I started talking to him and rubbing his head and he slowly started coming out of it.

Poor baby! He had no idea what was going on and why he felt so crappy. The nurse let me hold him and give him his apple juice. He had such a hard time staying awake though. He'd take a sip of juice and then conk out. Then he'd wake up a minute later and take another sip and conk back out. We spent about half an hour in the recovery room and then they sent us up a few floors to his room where he stayed the rest of the time.

By 9:00pm he was feeling a little bit better and we got him to eat half of a popsicle. He seemed to be in better spirits so I sent Kyle home for the night so he could get Janelle ready for school the next day.

Spencer didn't want to drink anything, so the nurse kept bringing popsicles every few hours.

Okay, not really a million. Just three.

At 10:00pm Spencer had had enough with the anesthesia and liquids and totally threw everything up getting his blankie pretty good. Ugh. The nurse told me I could wash it a few floors up, so I left Spencer with her in search of the laundry room, intending to be gone only 10 minutes. Of course on the 8th floor they were completely out of detergent so I had to go all the way down to the laundry room on the 1st floor. Now Children's Medical Center of Dallas is HUGE. Seriously it is one major hospital. On my hunt to find the washer with a disgustingly soiled blanket in hand I got lost. Not just a little lost. A LOT lost. It was probably 45 minutes later that I finally made it back to my poor son! He was still awake, but not too distraught that I'd left him for so long.

Shortly after I returned from my quest Spencer threw up again. I was SO happy that his blankie was still safely in the washer and that the nurses could just deal with all the blankets this time.

By 11:30pm and two more trips all the way down to the first floor and back the blankie was back in it's owner's happy arms.

Spencer's doctor and all his nurses told me that the only way he could go home the next day was if he could eat and drink and keep it down. Thus started the night of the popsicles.

Here's a 1:50 AM popsicle midnight snack.

And then another 3:35 AM popsicle snack.

Between making sure he was getting some kind of liquid down him, checking his stent and diaper, and the nurse coming in every hour I got about 3 hours of sleep that night. Spencer was even awake most of the night. He didn't really seem like he was in too much pain because he'd been getting pain relievers, he was just awake. I couldn't believe it. We watched a lot of "Thomas" and "Cars" that night. Fortunately when Kyle got back to the hospital in the morning Spence took a long nap, so I took advantage of it and took one too.

Spencer did not like all the wires that were attached to him. He couldn't walk around because his iv was attached to his foot (plus he wasn't supposed to be walking around anyway with stitches in his side), but he was VERY happy to have them off by late afternoon on Tuesday.

Spencer and I were SO HAPPY to see Daddy Tuesday morning. I needed a break and Spencer needed a new playmate!

In the recovery room, the nurse gave Spencer this Fox in Socks stuffed animal. It's really soft and Spencer loves it. This morning he couldn't find it and he said,
"Where my fox go Mommy?"
Right after the nurse detached Spencer from all his monitors and iv Kyle took him into the hall to walk around and see the fishies. He was SO happy to be out of that hospital room!

On the first floor of the hospital there was this cool train room that had huge rocks and tunnels for these toy trains to go through. We stopped in before leaving the hospital. Spencer loved it!

We made it home at about 7:30 last night. Spencer was thrilled to see his house. He ate a good amount of spaghetti for dinner, kept it down and was even jumping on his bed before bedtime. We set up the blow-up mattress for him in the living room so I could hear him if he needed anything during the night. Fortunately he (and I) slept the whole night. It was GREAT! This morning he woke up and immediately wanted to play with his new train tracks. Thus starts the impossible task of making him take it easy for the next 10 days until he gets his stent out. Whew, it's going to be hard!