Another Surgery

Laying on the table in Pre-op in animal gown.

Mommy & Andrew before surgery

Andrew is VERY hungry but we managed to get him asleep.  

We were waiting in Pre-op for over an hour.

We are now in Recovery just after surgery. 

Andrew has been crying hard but calmed down after being placed in Mommy's arms.

Andrew's surgery today went very well.  For the first time since birth, he is "all natural"- no artificial equipment such as stints, tubes, or wires.  He is a brave little guy and quite a fighter. He is already home and recovering from a not-so-fun day.  The purpose of today's surgery was to remove the stint that was placed in his left uriter during his last surgery.  The stint was to help it heal and keep the uriter open & draining without putting extra pressure on it.  Because of an ultrasound picture done last month the doctor thought she may have to replace it with a larger stint.  

According to surgery instructions Andrew couldn't eat past 3 a.m. and no clear liquids past 7 a.m.  Surgery time was scheduled for 10:30 so by the time they took him for surgery he was very hungry.  But he was also tired so with a lot of love and cuddling from Mommy he was able to sleep through most of the waiting time.  One of the hardest parts is handing Andrew over to the nurse that will be attending to him in surgery and watching her walk away with him, leaving me empty handed.  I hate that part.

Fortunately the surgery didn't take long- about an hour.  The doctor came into the waiting room to take us back to Recovery.  Andrew was just coming out of anesthetia and was crying hard and very upset.  Who wouldn't be after being poked and prodded, not to mention hungry and tired? It was amazing how quickly he calmed down once he was placed in my arms.  The parents of the patient in the next bed over told us it was amazing the difference.  We were happy to learn that Andrew no longer has a stint-- the kidney and uriter are draining well and he won't need to follow up with her for two months!  That is good news. 

Since he returned home Andrew has been sleeping.  When he cries his throat sounds raspy and sore because of incubation, which probably irritated the incision spot where his TEF surgery was done in April.  Poor little guy has been through so much in his short life.

I haven't forgotten we have another baby too.  Aaron was well taken care of by someone in our ward.  A big thank you to Kim and her family for taking excellent care of him.  They have 6 children (one of them born a week after the twins) so another one probably wasn't even noticed! He had a lot of fun being there and watching all the activity going on.  Aaron will probably be bored now at home!

Have you ever had your eye sanitized?  Early this morning-3 am. to be specific- I must have felt the need to do that.  After changing their diapers I was using a hand sanitizer but instead of cleaning my hands it shot DIRECTLY into my open left eye!  OUCH!  It felt like my eyeball was on fire!  I rushed to the bathroom and immediately began flushing it with water for several minutes.  It has been red and puffy all day and feels like several pieces of sand are in my eye. There was no doubt I was wide awake early this morning!