Harrison's Surgery

Harrison's surgery on Wednesday went well. We got to Children's at 6:15 am and he was taken back at 7:30 am. We heard from the ENT doctor at around 9:30 as his part (the tubes) was done, and they were starting the pic line insertion which would take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. Well, we finally heard news almost two hours later. We were starting to get really worried! They had a really hard time getting the pic line in and failed in one arm so they had to do the other (which meant multiple sticks--boo!). After having to receive a breathing treatment since he was under so long, we finally saw him sometime after 12. He was mad as a hornet! Phew! It took us a good 20 minutes to calm him down. We were so thankful for the Ipad as it kept him occupied while we were in recovery. 

 

He would NOT go to sleep. We tried and tried, but it was not happening. Joel and I took turns laying in the bed with him. Because the hospital was full, there were no rooms for us, so the nurse in recovery decided to go ahead and do his first round of antibiotics in the pic line, which went horribly. We were warned that too much of the antibiotic would cause him to get "Red Man's Syndrome," and of course, he got it after about 30 minutes. They were trying to do the dose in one hour increments, but that was just too much at one time. His fever spiked to 102, he got red all over, and was itching uncontrollably. It was pretty scary! As soon as she turned it off though, he was fine.

We finally got a room around 3 I guess. The surgery was in the new hospital, but our room was in the old hospital, where they are renovating it (think hammers at 6 am!). Also, the room was terrible. There were black hairs ALL over the room and bathroom. I did not want to be a snob, and I thought we could just bear it for one night, but after an hour of Harrison getting more and more active, I realized that I could not make it and that it had to be cleaned! Yuck, I still get nauseous just thinking about how gross it was.

Harrison found his little hiding spot to take care of business if you know what I mean (always has to be in hiding!). :) This was obviously before we realized how gross the room was and boy did I get socks on his feet fast!

 Feeling better after surgery!

If it were not for these wagons, I'm not sure we would have survived. Keeping a virtually healthy 22 month old in a tiny hospital room is not ideal at all (and the Ipad would not work in our room!). So, we did rounds upon rounds of riding throughout the hospital. And let me tell you, riding around that hospital sure makes you think about how lucky you are to be healthy. It's a good reminder to be grateful for what we have. Things sure could be worse.

Joel went home around 7 and I tried to get Harrison to sleep in the crib, but he was not having it. Even one of our nurses described it as "institutional." It was kind of scary. So, he slept on the pull out, which ended up working perfectly as we had to do an IV treatment at 9 pm that night and his arm was easy to get to (and they were able to do it without really waking him up). This treatment lasted 2 hours and he did great with it.

 I did not get a whole lot of sleep that night. They were in and out of the room 50 million times (for no reason!!!). I think I got about 3 hours of straight sleep and then they were in the room at 4 am, 5 am, and 6 am, and of course the hammering started around then too. Harrison woke up several times too. He had another round of IV meds at 5 am, so at 6, I just went ahead and got up because I knew he would be up for the day when they took it out. We survived the night though and that was all that mattered!

Of course we started the day with another wagon ride. We could watch the trains at Railroad Park from here, so we spent a good amount of time on this patio.

Bless his poor heart, he was SO tired, but would just not give in. We tried to make his ride comfy!

 We were so mad yesterday morning. We had expected to go home once home health had come to teach us how to do the IV antibiotics, however, we got a call at 10 am from home health saying that they had not even gotten the order in yet from the ENT and if the surgery had even happened. It was very frustrating since we knew at that point that we would have to stay there most of the day.

Harrison finally conked out in the chair after lunch (don't worry, we moved him to a safer spot!).

 The home health nurse arrived around 3 and gave us our tutorial. Well, gave me. Harrison was not happy being woken up from his nap and Joel had to deal with him. I was VERY overwhelmed. I really thought the home health nurse would come and do this for us each time, but they will only be coming once a week. There are just a lot of steps we have to do and I have already messed up on steps. I just hate to be doing the wrong thing when this line is a direct connection to his heart. One really wrong move can be really bad! So, there were a lot of tears shed yesterday and last night. We are a little better today as we are getting the hang of it, but it is stressful and not to mention, two of the doses are in the middle of the night so it's like we have a newborn again. We are pretty much on track to get about 5 hours of sleep for the next 10 days. And then to make matters worse yesterday, the nurse cleaned the site and repacked him before we left and she bent the pic line, so last night's dose and this morning's dose took close to 4 hours to complete. It is really a nightmare. We called the home health nurse this morning and instead of sending someone out here to help us (another frustration), she tried to get us to fix the problem on the phone. This situation is just not ideal, but like I said, I keep reminding myself that it could be worse and hopefully (fingers crossed), we will just be doing this for 10 days (even though the home health nurse told us it will probably be more like a month!) and you can do anything for that long!

This is the IV that I can carry around with me while chasing him all over the house. We are trying to schedule these so that the majority of them will occur while he is sleeping, but this morning when it took 4 hours, that was not going to happen! I finally just put him in the stroller and we went for a long walk. That helped him relax too so I will definitely be doing that again.

 He was so happy to be back to all of his toys...

 And we were ALL glad to be back with big brother! Man, we missed him! Thank you to Migi and Pops for keeping him the past couple of days. We could not have done this without them. My mom had surgery on Wednesday too, so she will spend the next 6 weeks or so recovering from that. Her surgery went well though too and hopefully she will be pain free going forward! Our life is just crazy right now!

Harrison is already feeling so much better. I was so proud of him while we were in the hospital and even since we've been home and have been dealing with the IV. I know they say kids are resilient, but I never in a million years thought he would handle things this well. He is not trying to pull the IV out (we do have it covered with an ace bandage), and it really doesn't bother him when we have the antibiotics going and he's basically on a leash. We've really had fun with him these past few days and he's been so happy and talking a ton! I just feel so bad that he's been sick basically his whole life! No wonder he was never happy!

Now it is on to Granddaddy's funeral tomorrow morning and then I think we can get some normalcy back in our lives. Thank you to everyone who has sent prayers our way this week. We appreciate them all and all of the messages and emails and texts too (and even some really sweet get well gifts for Harrison). You all have made this week so much better.