Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Surgery update -- all went well!

Jimmy had his surgery Monday morning and did fine. Our experience at the children's hospital was just great. We were scheduled first thing in the morning, so we had very little wait time. They had toys, video games, and TVs showing the Disney channel everywhere. The nurses took Jimmy's favorite blanket & stuffed animal with them so that he'd have them when he went to sleep & when he woke up. It did seem like forever before the doc came out to tell us everything went well, but the surgery only took about 45 minutes, and Jimmy was out of recovery and back with us less than half an hour later.

He was a little groggy at first, but woke up pretty quickly and even took a bottle right away. The anesthesiologist explained before the surgery that she would use inhaled anesthesia with a mask & "soft airway" rather than intubating him, and then they would do a caudal block (similar to an epidural, but way down at the bottom of the spine so much less risky). This lasts for several hours, so they didn't have to give him any narcotic pain medicine while he was still under or recovering from the anesthesia.

He was back to his old self by the time we got home around 11am, and even had some pureed fruit that afternoon. He did have some pain once the caudal wore off, so he enjoyed a tylenol & codeine nap for most of the afternoon. Yesterday he just needed some regular tylenol in the morning, and today you wouldn't even know anything had happened to him. They sure do bounce back quickly!

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