Nick's surgery

Nick was a CHAMP and he still is a champ! Such a big boy!

Nick was born with hypospadias. It is a birth defect where the urethra doesn’t go all the way to the end of the “wee wee”. There are varying degrees and luckily Nick’s was a very minor hypospadias. He also had a bend in his “wee wee” (called chordee) that would cause him pain later in life. The window for repair is thought to be 6-18 mos. Nick turned 18 mos on 30 April. His surgery has been scheduled for May 4, 2009 since April 30, 2008 – that’s a long time to have something like this hanging…

To add to some already frazzled nerves for this Momma: Nana called late Saturday night and said her flight was cancelled due to weather. After a long time on hold, American rebooked Nana on a flight on Continental that was not affected by the crappy weather in Dallas. Whew – she made it in a couple hours later than her original arrival time.

We took Jake to school just a little earlier than our normal arrival time and then we took Nick over to Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Check in was quick and smooth. Nick who is a complete milk fiend (like his pawpaw) could only have juice. Luckily, he was okay with that. He just sat quietly and took it all in as they took us back to our room and we outfitted him with these lovely yellow jammies.

Surgery was scheduled for 945 and we had to be there at 745. There was a lot of waiting and we had not brought anything but Bear Bear – as directed. (of course, we found out on his way to surgery that we could have walked down the hall to the play room – nice to KNOW…sheesh!) So, we played hide n seek under the sink (nothing else was in the cabinet); he played with my keys and he colored (mostly himself) with a highlighter and blue pen I had.

As we were about ready to pull out our hair – it was just about time for him to go and doctors and nurses started coming in and talking to us. They brought Nick some “Goofy Juice” to loosen him up during the separation from me. It was hysterical. A couple more people came in to check him out – and about 5 seconds after they left and close the door, Nick would raise his hand and wave in slow motion and say “bye” and then blow them kisses in slow motion. He was hysterical.

They let him keep his bear bear so that it was already there when he woke up. We were called in the waiting room every 30 mins with an update starting with the first cut. Nick went to sleep with out issue. When the doctor cut the underside, the bend straightened right up which was a less complicated repair of the bend than we thought it would be. On to the urethra and he was done in about an hour and a half.

Shortly after that call, we were called to post-surgery to visit with Nick. He was just becoming aware and I got to hold him while he CHUGGED his juice. They wouldn’t let him have milk yet. He passed all the tests in phase one of recovery pretty quickly so they moved us to a room for phase 2. We had to wait for his legs to start moving and learn how to take care of the catheter and leg bag. We were out of there by 1pm.

It wasn’t nearly so smooth trying to get the medicines but we persevered. He slept all the way through the night until 5am when he started moving around. I got up and got him on his meds asap to hopefully smooth the morning. He’s had a few rough spots, but all in all is doing wonderfully. We get the catheter out tomorrow which I can already tell will help him immensely. It seems when the leg bag shifts is when he suffers the most pain.

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers. It was a rough day on this momma…but we made it and everyone is enjoying a day at home (except for Daddy who still had to work!)

Love

Chris, Matt, Jake & Nick