I think everything is calming down.
We got to Charlottesville with enough time to check into the hotel and grab lunch before Nicholas' appointments. The only surprise with his hearing test was that Dr. Kesser was surprised at how well he was actually hearing, especially after looking at his tiny canal. It was a tough appointment...hearing about all of the things that could go wrong (deafness, facial paralysis, etc.), and signing the consent forms...suddenly I was thinking that Nicholas' hearing wasn't so bad afterall! After his appointment we rushed to the hospital to fill out paperwork for the surgery, and then it was back to the hotel for Nicholas' last hurrah for awhile...swimming. He thought he was hot stuff since he could touch the bottom. We stayed in for quite awhile (ok, Scott and Nicholas stayed in for quite awhile!) and then had a late dinner. I scrubbed him up good in the tub and got his "Cars" jammies on him and Scott read him "Curious George Goes to the Hospital." I actually slept much better than I thought I would. I had a hard time getting to sleep, but managed to sleep through the night after falling asleep.
The phone rang at 5:15 for our wakeup call and dread rushed through my body. I just wanted to roll over and cuddle Nicholas and stay in bed all day. We managed to make it out the door by 6:15 (the hospital was only a couple of blocks from out hotel) and on the way there Nicholas said "I don't want to go." I told him it would be over before he knew it, while thinking "I don't want to go either."
We didn't have to wait long at all at the hospital before they took us up to get ready. We put on his little tiny hospital gown with his cute little "cheekers" hanging out and the nurses were there ready to put on his bracelet, and then the anesthesiologist came in and asked a few questions, and came back quickly with some "happy medicine." He let me squirt it in Nicholas' mouth and everything seemed to go in fast-forward. Dr. Kesser and his residents came in for any last minute questions. Nicholas decided he wanted me to go with him into the operating room, and everyone assured us that Curious George could stay with Nicholas.
I think Scott had the hardest part of saying goodbye to Nicholas before they wheeled him to surgery. If that would have been me, I'm not sure I could have been as composed. And it seemed we walked, and walked, and walked. In fact, I think it took longer to walk to the surgery room than it did for Nicholas to fall asleep. But it went well, he didn't fight the anesthesia too much and I gave him a kiss and the nurse walked me back. I was concentrating so much on what I had to do, that it was over before I had a chance to think about it. Of course, my eyes filled with tears on the long way back to Scott, but I felt at peace.
And the wait began. I had a few magazines, a book and the prayer book. I managed to read TV Guide and thought it must surely be 9:00...it was 8:15. They moved us to a nicer waiting area and I decided to read some from the book. I think I read each page at last two times. I pulled out the prayer book and was comforted again, and then tried to read more. I'm not sure how many magazines Scott went through. I was surprised that the door opened at 11:45 and Dr. Kesser motioned for us to come into the hallway. Both Dr. Kesser and Dr. J. spoke with us and told us how well everything went. He also had some nice pictures to show us (those of you who know how squeamish I am would be so proud!). He told us that Nicholas had a choleastoma, which if left untreated will cause permanent damage to the ear. So we were very glad that we had the surgery when we did.
We went back into the waiting room to wait for recovery to call, and thankfully they did very soon after. It was 12:00 when recovery called and said he'd be asleep for awhile, to go eat lunch and then come to recovery around 1:00. We made the wonderful phone calls to the parents and tried to eat something, but we were at recovery by 12:45. This was our first look at him:
He finally woke up around 1:45 and his first words were "me thirsty." We went up to his room soon after and after drinking more, he went back to sleep. We had a wonderful nurse that took good care of him. And the anesthesiologist came to apologize for knocking his front top tooth loose while putting in the breathing tube. It will probably fall out in the next week.
Dr. Kesser came to check on him around 3:15 and they changed his bandage so he didn't look so angry at the world, and he stayed awake the rest of the time. He complained about his ear hurting, but not his arm, so we figured it was his bandage that was bothering him more than his ear. He did eventually get sick, and then we couldn't find anything for him to eat that he liked...no popsicle, no jello, no crackers...he eventually ate one saltine and had some juice before falling asleep for the night.
Nicholas slept all night, and I layed awake most of the night. I just couldn't sleep. Too much had happened throughout the day, and we had such a long drive ahead of us on Friday.
Dr. Kesser's resident came in at 6:30 to remove Nicholas' bandages, and we celebrated with some goldfish and apple juice.
Dr. Kesser came in right after 7 a.m. and had Nicholas make all kinds of funny faces for him to make sure his facial nerves were working fine. He gave us the instructions for care and that was it. We could have been out of there by 7:30, but had to wait on the pharmacy to send up the last prescription. We left at 8:30 and the trip home was uneventful. Nicholas and I slept through the moutains and all was well!
His skin graft donor site has been the worst part. It seeps for the first few days and was sticking to his clothes, and the edges peeled back some, making it more sore and more ugly. I was pretty worried about it last night and, with the nerves of the day, had a little meltdown. This morning when he woke up it was much better though. The parts that peeled back look bad, but there is no more seeping and it hasn't caught on his clothes at all. Today was pretty uneventful (except he was mad this morning because he wanted to go to church to see baby Aubrey).
I need to go pay attention to some boys, so I need to cut this short. But again, thank you everyone for all of your thoughts and prayers.
Love,
Christie
Waiting to get out of the hospital: