My Boy!

As Christy gets some much needed sleep and there is finally a free minute where James decided to do the same, I figured I would take a minute to update everyone on James' surgery last week. After our pre-op on Tuesday, we felt comfortable with what we were in store for on Thursday for James' surgery. James had been as personable, cute, and entertaining as we had seen him in the days leading up to his surgery and that hadn't changed the morning of the big day.
We arrived at the hospital at 6:45 am for the schedules 8:45 surgery. James was not able to eat after 2 a.m. so we were hoping the surgery would start on time. James was in such a great mood and decided he wanted to show off for everyone who came into the room presurgery by rolling over, talking, laughing, and doing anything he could think of to get a reaction. Of course surgery was delayed so we had to spend an extra 30 minutes keeping James occupied and keeping him from realizing he was hungry.
Letting James go with the nurse into surgery was one of the toughest things we had to do. Nervous about the anesthesia, the surgery, and how he would be after the surgery, we seemed to have it hit us at once as it was time to let him go. After a few healthy tears we were actually given our own waiting room (I am guessing we will see that on the bill at some point) and didn't have too much difficulty getting through the two hours. Our first update, after a half hour, assured us that the anesthesia had gone well and Dr. Matthews had begun working on James. We had one more update an hour later and then Dr. Matthews came in right around 2 hours after they had taken James back to give us the recap.
He said that surgery had gone well. He was very pleased with the lip and had been able to help the nose also. Because of the cartilage in the left nostril, a retainer was needed to help form the nostril. The stitches are desolvable so the only thing that would eventually need to be removed besides the retainer was a piece of tape over the lip.
We were then able to see James and he was really struggling to get over the after effects of anesthesia. He seemed like he was in some pain but the nurses explained that as the anesthesia wears off it is similar to a hangover. And as you can imagine, if a 25 year old has a problem with a hangover, you can imagine the discomfort for a six month old. Also, by virtue of the tube that was down his throat during surgery, he had considerable discomfort in his throat for a few days after. The next 24 hours were spent in our own hospital room with James seemingly in and out of pain and getting over the anesthesia. He was able to sleep an hour or two in his hospital bed and then spent another 3 or so hours sleeping in my arms. Around noon on Friday the old James started coming back. His personality came back a bit by bit and it was interesting to see the old personality coming through two swolen cheeks, a swolen lip, and a very raspy voice that sounded like offspring of kermit the frog and 60 year old two pack a day smoker. The nurses took off the bandage and we were able to get our first glimpse at the repairs. It looked great. The lip was unbelievable.
James was reluctant to eat for the better part of 24 hours after surgery and as Dr. Matthews visited us on Friday morning, he said we were ready to be discharged after James ate. We proceeded to wait on Mr. James for a while until he decided it was time to put the new lip to work and get some nourishment. He ate twice and we were discharged around 3 p.m.
We arrived home to our good buddy Max and Uncle Greg and had a wonderful, albeit relatively sleepless, weekend.
As of today, James is doing wonderful. We visited Dr. Matthews today and he said everything looked great. We are scheduled to visit again next Tuesday at which point the stitches should be desolved and the retainer will most likely be removed. James goes back to daycare tomorrow and that will be the last step to resume regular activity. He continues to have an abundance of personality which makes every minute with him a blast and he also continues to not want to sleep which makes alot more of those minutes for us to spend with him.
Thanks to all for your well wishes, prayers, and follow up. Although it was the three of us in the hospital, we knew there were many more with us in spirit and thoughts. We will look to get some pictures up soon and I am sure Christy will be much more eloquent with her post in the upcoming days.