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Thursday, June 10, 2010

Surgery Day

I hope that most of you have been either following me on Twitter @meandj or on James' facebook fan page so you have gotten the hour by hour report. I wanted to give some of the details of the day here.



We arrived at the Surgery floor at 5:45 this morning. When we walked into the hospital a wave a nausea hit me and I almost lost in at the doors, but I held it together. James was in a pretty good mood even though he wanted a snack. we got all checked in and settled in our waiting room. We had a private waiting room which was really nice!! At 6:00 we were called back to the prep room and signed every paper the hospital has I think. Lots of different doctors and nurses came in and asked pretty much the same questions about James' history.



7:30 rolls around and it is time for Surgery. They gave James some meds to help him relax and make the separation not traumatic. I was very happy about this because I was a mess and I didnt want to scare him. By the time we got to the OR door James was in LaLa Land! He didnt care who had him or where they were taking him. He was waving and telling everyone hi. I broke down and thought I was going to faint. Passing James over to the nurse was like ripping my heart out with my bare hands. All I could think about was, "What if that is the last kiss I give him"



Josh had to pretty much walk me back to the waiting room. I lost all sense of where I was or direction. All I was focused on was staying upright, and that was a challenge. We got to the waiting room and I had a good cry. It was great that my mom and dad were with us, Josh and I really needed our support system right then. They went down and got us breakfast. I help off on eating for a bit.



At 8:30 we got the call the the first incision was made. WOW! that is a heavy call to get. The staff called us on the hour which was GREAT! We felt like we really knew what was going on the whole time. The surgery took 3 hours from the time the put him to sleep until they closed. Dr. Park came in to talk with us and explained a little about the surgery.



He told us that James did really well. Dr. Park said that he cut 65% of the nerves that he tested which is normal. We were able to go back to recovery after about an hour. James, like usual, came out of surgery swinging! I get back there and he is puffy and crying. He look pretty pitiful but it was his sweet breathing face so I was happy. He calmed down when we started talking to him. They took us straight to the PICU.



In the PICU James started to have a little trouble with his breathing. At first they weren't too concerned and just did the blow by air ( mask sitting beside him). But after about an hour he started to have saturation levels around 89. The nurse came in and we talked about a nasal cannula. I thought it was a good idea and so we started that. He did care for that too much. But within about 30min it was it was clear he needed it. He started to dip into the 70's and sat around 72 with a respiration of 9. That is when the team came in and started getting him to perk up. He would come up and them get in a deep sleep and dip right back down. He did this several time. I was a little worried but not that surprised.



In the NICU this was James' issue as well. He would drop his o2 levels and not keep him temp. So when they told me that his temp was low too I just chuckled a bit because we have sure been here before! Luckily this time it is pain med induced and we will be working our way out of it.



At around 1 or so, James started to itch really badly. He also started to have muscle spasms. I think these were the worst of this whole process. Seeing your child jerk and grimace in total pain is heartbreaking. At one point he started asking me to help! Oh how I wanted to take the pain from him. His nurses, who are beyond wonderful, talked with the doctor and upped his meds. He also started benadryl for the itching.

As I sit here at 11pm, the rest of the family has gone back to the hotel. I have made a nice little nest here in the corner of James' room. I have lots of magazine and of course my laptop! I am set :-) This hospital is SO wonderful to the families. They brought me a nice gift bag with goodies. James needs me here because he has woken up twice while I was typing this calling for me. We are still dealing with the spasms but they are better. Tomorrow we hope will be his upswing!

Specific Prayer Requests-

1. There is a family beside us that needs your prayers right now! They are is such great needs of prayers for a daughter that was in some sort of accident from what I can gather. The PICU is an overwhelming place and there are great needs for each family here tonight.

2. That James' pain will be well managed and that we can keep him still like has to be until Sunday.

3. That we all can get some rest in this hospital setting.

2 comments:

Anonymous

This is such great news that James is already having some changes that he has never had before. I have been praying for him and the rest of the family. God BLess, Brenda Stewart

Holly

Glad he came thru the surgery well!

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