Surgery Update

We're home and everyone is doing well. Things were exhausting and it was frustrating being back in the hospital, but it was overall a good experience. Here is an approximate timeline of the events over the last few days...

Tuesday:

4am - wake Noah and attempt to feed him pedialite (yeah right!)

5am - leave for hospital

6am - arrive at hospital

6:20 am - go back to pre-op room to get ready for surgery

visits from: anesthesiology resident, anesthesiologist, ent resident, ent intern (first year resident), head ent resident, head of audiology department, 2 nurses aids, and the surgical nurse (Notice anybody missing? Oh yeah, the surgeon! We were assured that he was there and that they weren't just letting the ent intern "practice" on Noah)
good news: the new AB Harmony was just released - Noah will be the first person at MCV to receive one, although he likely will use the body-worn processor for a while

other good news: unlike our last use of anesthesia we were not given any doom & gloom statistics about BPDers. The anesthesiologists were quite confident that he would not have any difficulty

7:30am - back to the OR
8:45am - we received a call from the surgical nurse: Noah was prepped and anesthetized and they had started the procedure 10 minutes earlier

11am - the head of audiology and the surgeon came out - the surgery went well! They would call us when we could go see him (they still had to wake him up at this point).

12pm - still no news... we asked at the desk & they said it could be up to 2 hours after the surgery ended before we could see him and that we could only ask every 45 minutes

12:15pm - the recovery room nurse called: he was awake and very thirsty. They wanted to know if he would drink apple juice (maybe?). They would call us when he was ready to go to his real room as the recovery room was very full and we couldn't go back.

12:30pm - visit from the ent intern: What exactly does he eat? We assured him that we had brought Pediasure & Duocal in case they couldn't get it mixed for us.

12:45pm - visit from the ent intern: He had ordered Pediasure & Duocal 6 oz every 4 hours. Was this ok? (Perfect!)

1:00pm - the recovery room nurse called: He was still thirsty. The apple juice was a hit! There was a wait on the room. Go get some lunch and then it should be ready.

1:30pm (after eating lunch) - the receptionist beckons us forward and whispers cryptic directions: "Take the elevator to the 1st floor. Take the other elevator to the 5th floor. Pick up the phone and state your name. Don't tell anyone I told you this." (apparently Noah was not interested in lying in a recovery room bed - they were going to let us in with him against hospital policy)
2:45pm - still no Peds bed available. Brian goes to pick up grandma at the airport.

3:45pm - Brian is back from the airport. We're still in the recovery room although Noah is quite recovered from anesthesia. Still no bed available.

5:00pm - still no bed available. They're going to bring us back to the peri-surgical unit (where the adults stay to recover from same-day surgery) until there's a bed available.
7:30pm - finally a bed! We're in a 4 person observation room on the Peds floor. Our roommates: A 4 year old asthmatic girl & her mommy. A 3 year old (very whiney!) post surgical boy & his daddy. A post-NICU preemie waiting for a long-term room elsewhere.

9:30pm - Finally some dinner (Thank goodness Papa John's delivers!)

10:00pm - Noah goes to sleep. Daddy & Grandma goes home. Mommy tries to go to sleep but the little boy in the next room wants his Mommy and the preemie keeps alarming (and making preemie noises which I guess I'm particularly attuned to).

Wednesday:

2:30am - Mommy finally gets to sleep in spite of the preemie and the little boy next door.

3:30am - Noah wakes up feeling much better and is ready to play.

5:00am - Noah is released from his bed and monitoring because he threw up on his foot with the IV and the pulse ox. We start walking the halls to keep him from disturbing his neighbors.

6:00am - The entire surgical team rounds on Noah. The ent intern says he will write up report right away and we should be able to leave as soon as my Brian comes back.

8:30am - Brian and Grandma arrive. Still no discharge papers! The only thing that will keep Noah from ripping off his bandage is walking the halls. The hospital staff think it's hilarious that we keep walking back and forth.
11:00am - Still no discharge papers. The nurse calls to check and the intern can't be bothered to come back until sometime in the afternoon. 12:00pm - I'm about ready to call our pulmonologist to get us out of here when the intern wanders in.

12:30 pm - We're on our way home!

Overall Noah was a trooper and things went very well. He managed to only need O2 for 20 minutes in the recovery room which is amazing to us. He had a bit of a fever overnight which is not unexpected from the anesthesia. Apparently surgery is quite good for his appetite because he's been chugging him bottles every 2-3 hours (hopefully that side effect won't go away!). He's an expert at removing his bandage, but he'll only need to wear it until tomorrow. Thank you for all of your prayers!