Recovery

Warning: read at your own risk. This post has details that not everyone wants to read. But, I'm putting it all out there so that those people getting ready for this process with their kids will have a better idea about what to expect.

We got home from the hospital on Wednesday afternoon and Max has been making slow improvements since then. That first evening he was pretty fussy, but he went to bed at 7:30pm and slept until about 7:30am the next morning with only two short awakenings for pain medicine. We all felt much better yesterday after our good night's sleep. He was pretty clingy yesterday and spent a good amount of time on mommy's lap snuggling and napping, but he didn't seem to be in as much pain. We were already able to decrease the amount of narcotic that we were giving him and switched to mainly plain Tylenol. I actually enjoyed yesterday. Remember that this is the boy who has always preferred daddy over mommy. Now he reaches for mommy and wants to snuggle up closely to me. This surgery has definitely helped move our attachment forward. Not that I'm recommending surgery solely for this purpose, but for those of you wondering if you should do a surgery fairly quickly after bringing your child home, I wouldn't hesitate. Max did not want to drink as much yesterday as he had on Wednesday. I don't think this was as related to discomfort as it was to the fact that he wanted real food. We are trying not to eat in front of him, but he saw sister eating a banana and cereal and he wasn't at all happy that he couldn't have any. It's no problem for us to wait to eat or to eat somewhere else in the house, but Ellie has to eat on time and with our small house there just isn't a great place completely away from him. Having Ellie home from school sick this week has added a whole new dimension to this process. Both kids have needed lots of attention so the balance has been difficult. And, don't forget that our nanny was out sick for half of the week too. Thankfully, my mom stepped up once again and was a huge help in balancing the needs of two sick kids. Our other big battle yesterday was constipation. This is our child who poops three times a day average. Yesterday was his third day without a bowel movement and he was definitely feeling it. He would hold his tummy and bend over crying, but could not poop. We ended up giving him two suppositories before we got some action. Not surprisingly, he wasn't a fan of these either. Other issues, Max has run a low grade fever since surgery - 99's. We aren't supposed to worry about it unless it gets up to 100.4 and we're hoping it won't. I'm wondering if this is a post-surgery phenomenon because it started right after surgery. But, another part of me thinks maybe this is mild H1N1. I don't suppose it matters much at this point since he's had Tamiflu and is on an antibiotic. We haven't gotten a great look at his palate. There's not a hole there anymore and it looks brown and crusty, but that's all I can tell. Okay, that's all I can think to report.