Surgery recap

Pre-surgery playing Candyland with Grandma

Friday our big boy had his surgery to separate his fingers.  I was feeling pretty anxious about this, but we didn't tell Jason until the night before.  We didn't even really go into the details about the doctor performing the surgery.  We just talked about how now he has 4 fingers and the doctor is going to give him 5 fingers.  We also talked about how after the surgery he would have a cast that he had to keep dry.  We explained that we will be getting him out of bed really early the next morning and getting directly into the car. 


The next morning was very early as the adults got up at 3:45 so that everyone and everything was loaded into the car, ready to go by 4:05.  We were supposed to get to the hospital between 6:30 and 7am, but we were concerned about traffic so we actually ended up getting there at 5:30.  I nursed Elizabeth and changed both kids into their clothes and before we knew it we were ready to go in.  We left Grandma and Elizabeth to see if they could find us some breakfast while Jeff and I went up to the day surgery until with Jason.  There was lots of waiting around which ended up bothering Jason.  He was already wary of what was going to happen and didn't really want to sit around.  He ended up getting what they call "goofy juice" at about 7:30.  It didn't take very long for that to kick in and before we knew it he was talking about big sunscreen.  The hardest part of the day was when they said it was time to hug him and say goodbye.  He was off to surgery at 8am and we knew the juice must have worked because he let the nurses wheel him away from Mommy and Daddy without a fuss. 



Jason on the goofy juice


I kept it together until he was wheeled off and couldn't help shed a few tears.  Then it just became a waiting game.  We went down and joined Grandma and Elizabeth for breakfast and played on the playground at the hospital.  We were told that the surgery should last about two and a half hours.  My heart dropped a little when one of the nurses called Jeff's phone, but it was just to say that everything was going well, but it would still be a little while.  We went back up to our little cubical to wait for Jason to come back.  He didn't end up finishing up until 11:30 and then there was a half an hour in recovery.  Waiting for that 2 hours was pretty hard, but we were so happy to see our sleeping boy when he came back to us.  The doctor came to see us while he was in recovery and let us know that Jason did very well and he was able to remove the extra bones and the fingers pinked up nicely. 


We wanted to be sure he could see Pooh Bear when he woke up.



After some juice and crackers, feeling a bit better and ready to head home.


It took about an hour for Jason to wake up, but when he did he was pretty dazed.  After Juice and some crackers he felt a bit better, but he was still pretty groggy.  We got some medicine and got everything all packed up and headed back home.  Jason slept most of the way home and just rested on the couch when we got there.  He didn't ask for any medicine, but that night we gave him regular Acetaminophen, not the one with Codeine that we had been given at the hospital.  When we do this again that is not an error I will make.  He was so exhausted that he passed out at first, but at about 11:30 when the drugs wore off he woke up and I gave him some more, then at 3:30 we did the same thing, but he kept fussing and couldn't sleep because his "fingers were stuck" and his hand hurt.  I felt so bad for him, but I couldn't give him another dose of anything for another 4 hours.  I cuddled him and we both fell asleep in his bed until Elizabeth started crying.  I got up with Jason still sleeping and tried to get Elizabeth back to sleep.  After not too long it was time for her morning feeding and she fell back asleep then Jason woke up for the day.  I was so thankful to get a nap that afternoon.


Sunday Jason passed out in the closet among his stuffed animals.  Carrying around that cast takes some extra work

Most of the weekend we watched a lot of Mickey Mouse clubhouse and cuddled.  We did get some manual labor out of Grandma and Jeff who did some work on the yard and bushes on Sunday.  Jason is getting used to using his club and hasn't even hit his sister with it yet (I did get a wallop in the face though.)  We covered the cast with a tie dyed tube sock that the hospital gave us and I am thinking about making a few more that look like sock puppets.  Jason has suggested a rocket ship, snake and lizard.  I'll see what my remedial sewing skills can do.  All in all we are doing okay and will survive the ordeal.  We are patiently waiting for the big reveal on April 25th!