Cade's surgery

Once again, I'm behind on blogging.  Cade's "g-tube boo boo" surgery (as Brenna says) was last week at Dell Children's Hospital.  We went in at 7 AM on Wednesday morning for his surgery at 8:30 AM.  I love how Dell has a Child Life Specialist that comes and talks to the patient before surgery.  A very nice lady came and talked to Cade and showed him pictures of what the surgery room would look like and pictures of the nurses and doctors on her iPad.  The idea is to get them more comfortable with what is going on and where they will be going.  I have to digress here - Imagine a Child Life Specialist talking to a micro-preemie before their NICU stay, showing pictures of the NICU on their iPad.   "So you will be whisked away to the NICU.  You won't be able to say hello or goodbye to your mommy and daddy.  We will then shove a tube down your throat so you can breathe.  You'll need all these machines to breathe and eat.  You will hear constant beeping of monitors for your entire stay." 

Back to Cade's surgery - he happily went with the nice lady.  The surgery lasted about an hour.  Jim and I were called back to the recovery room where we found a very unhappy little boy.  It was really heartbreaking to see him like that.  He was squirming and kicking and crying and moaning.  It was awful.  I asked the nurse for more pain meds for him.  Once she gave him more morphine, he calmed down.  In the picture below, he is resting with a permanent frown after getting morphine.  So sad.

Once we got settled in our room, he was much more comfortable.  I pretty much held him all day and cuddled him.  I did not enjoy the fact that my son needed surgery, but I did enjoy uninterrupted cuddles all day.  He did too.  Look at that sweet face!

After all day in the hospital room, we were ready to get out of that room for a while.  We took Cade on a wagon ride around the hospital.  He was still on the IV, so we had to pull the IV pump along.

It was so sad and strange to see Cade like this because he typically is an energetic, little tornado destroying everything in his path.

He played with a few toys in the playroom down the hall.

By the next day, he was so much better.  I woke up to find him standing up in his crib playing with the IV bag.  He looked at me and said, "Wha tha?" (What's that?) . . . "wa wa?" (water?)  I had to laugh.  That was the first time he had used the phrase "What's that?" 

We went for another wagon ride, but this time we didn't have to drag along the IV pole.   At Dell, they have this cool ball maze at the entrance.  Cade was mesmerized by it. 

I knew he was back to his normal self when he wanted to get out of the wagon and splash in the waterfall. 

Once we left the hospital that afternoon, you would never know he had just had surgery.  He was running and playing when we got home.   He didn't even need any pain medication. 

I have to throw this picture of Camdyn in too.  Lately, she has been making a "cheese" face when I try to take a picture.  It is so funny!  She thinks she looks really cute like this, and she would be right; it's just not what I'm aiming for.