Surgery day!

Oh what a day! It was much much crazier than I expected. I guess the dr. made it sound so simple that when I pictured surgery I hardly even pictured blood!

Anyway, the case is called endoscopic secondary craniofacial reconstruction.

Here's how our day went:

5:30 am. wake up calvin to take his epilepsy meds and get ready to go

 6:45am Dave arrived with Calvin at the hospital and did all the check in stuff. Calvin was not cooperative for any of that.  Bad sign. Especially when Dave was with him. He usually does really well with dave.  However, we had just had the worst weekend I can remember. Absolutely awful so it was a tough beginning under any circumstances.
I stayed home to get the girls settled in with my friend who came over to watch them, bless her!

7:45 I arrive just in time to see the surgeon and anesthesiologist come by and say hi/answer questions.

8:10 Dave escorts Calvin to OR - he is completely uncooperative and combative as Dave drags him back to the room.  He is restrained and crying as he falls asleep with the mask.

8:15 Dave and I go get food while we wait.

9ish Dr. Cohen comes out to meet us in the lobby to say the surgery went really well.  Dave puts on his white coat to go round on a couple of patients he operated on yesterday.

10ish We are invited back to see Calvin in the PACU. His head is wrapped.  He had started to stir a bit and was upset so they gave him something - percoset maybe- to help him rest again so he is pretty sound asleep.

10:30 Calvin wakes up very upset. Screaming about his head hurting and how the wrap is too tight. He tries to pull out iv's and pull off the head wrapping. They give him demoral. Dave requests no more demoral so then they give him versed.  Then he is screaming about pain so they give him morphine.  Then they give him morphine.  It freaked me out to see them giving him so much medicine!   Since he is screaming and so mad we move to a private room.  While wrestling with  Calvin (I was holding down one side and Dave was holding the other) I start to feel sick with worry about how we made the wrong choice doing an elective procedure on him and that the complications of him messing up his wound or causing injury to his head will be way worse than if we never even did the surgery. I am so worried sick that I start to black out. I tell dave to hold Calvin's arm so that I can sit before I pass out.  I lay down on the floor and the nurses take my spot.  for the next 30 minutes I am useless. I sit in a chair at the foot of Calvin's bed and put my head down. Every few minutes I ask Dave if I look okay yet and he says no!! HA! what a circus!   When I finally feel better I go to McDonalds to get some food for Calvin hoping that if he gets something in his system he'll become rational again.  When I get back to the room he has fallen asleep in dave's lap (where dave had been holding to restrain him from pulling out his IV). By now Calvin has so many drugs in his system now he is out cold. First he sleeps on dave's lap for an hour but then dave moves him back to his bed where he sleeps for the next several hours.

Oh, I should say that at some point in all this they decided to take off the headdress knowing that there was no way it would be on his head for 24 hours as instructed.

2pm Calvin wakes up in a lot of pain again.We give him tylenol with coedine and try  to give him food/drink but he takes about 1 sip of gatorate and  one bite of cracker and then falls asleep again. .  He sleeps again and wakes up an hour later nauseated but on an empty stomach has nothing to throw up.

3pm Wakes up dry heaving again and then right back to sleep.

Around 4:30 we decided we should try to start waking him to see if he would rouse enough for us to get home. We are setting a world record for length of stay in the PACU.  We wake up Calvin and he is cheerful and ready to go home! HURRAY!  He eats a little bit of his happy meal from hours before (yuck) and is super excited about leaving. We get ready and put him in a wheel chair and stop by the cafeteria to get the worlds best cookies.

4:45 heading home

He rides home with Dave and I drive myself.   By the time Dave/Calvin reach the pharmacy in our neighborhood Calvin is throwing up his food. He arrives home at 5:45  back asleep and dave carries him in to the couch.

8:30 awake and hungry. He takes a few sips of gatorate and a few bites of banana bread and gets 2 pills down (antibiotic and tylenol). He still has 4 pills to take so hopefully he'll  keep the first two down and then wake in another hour and be able to take those (epilepsy meds and tenex for sleep (not that he needs it to sleep tonight but it is one you can't stop taking cold turkey)).

9:30. I am pooped! What a day! It was so much more stressful and strenuous than I thought.  Last night I slept on the couch so that if he got up in the night I'd hear him and stop him from eating before surgery. Tonight I'll probably sleep in his room so that I am near him if he needs anything.

Calvin has had general anesthesia several times before and has never had such a reaction as today. It usually takes an hour or two for him to wake up and then he's ready ot have a snack and leave for home. Plus, we usually stop for a big breakfast on the way home and he's never had a problem keeping food down. I think it was different today since he got so many meds after waking up + he does have some pain and I know that contributes to overall feeling.   I hope tomorrow he feels better and is ready to start eating a little bit so he has enough energy to get around. He is too tired to even walk to the bathroom right now.

PS.  Calvin woke up at 11pm to throw up more!  poor child! After this episode, he finally felt feeling better. After having slept ALL DAY he was wide awake and chipper and ready to hang out!  Dave stayed up with him from 11pm-2am watching Spiderman and playing Monopoly. At 2 I got up with him and watched Phineaus and Ferb and he fell asleep on the couch around 3. I made a bed on the other couch and slept with him 'til around 5:30. He was awake and feeling well so I went back to bed in my own bed for a couple of hours before the day began.

Day 1 post op. Calvin has been doing really well today. He feels good. No more sore throat or nausea. He has eaten a few meals and had a good day of TV, nintendo and a few errands when he felt up to it. He also got a good nap in today! He woke up a little swollen and has continued to swell throughout the day. Now (bedtime) he is so swollen his eyes are just little slits. Hopefully the worst is tonight so that he isn't swollen shut when he wakes up in the morning. Since he didn't keep on his head dress he has more swelling than the Dr. would have anticipated but it won't interfere with the outcome, it will just take longer to heal. He is taking tylenol around the clock and that is plenty to help him not have a headache.

Another PS. Dave will have to read this and edit drug names to make sure what I have is accurate.
I will also add a few pics