He's out of surgery!

It had been about 6 hours since he went back so we were very excited and anxious to see him. Because it was so late we had to go to the adult post-op to see him. His head was bandaged and a drain was coming out the back. He had a nasty black eye and his whole face was swollen. I immediately took him in my arms and started nursing him. He seemed to be in some pain so they were giving him morphine. I was having a hard time because I was so hot and holding him was making me increasingly sweaty and uncomfortable. 

Finally around 9pm it was time to head to our room on the pediatrics floor. Initially we were put in a room with another older gal. She had a room full of visitors and the tv blaring. We were quickly distracted though because the nurse was very concerned about the seal barky sounds of his breathing (this happened last time after surgery and landed us in the ER so I was happy to be in the hospital this time). Anesthesia and the plastic surgery team were called to make sure everything was fine. We knew that his airway was being reactive to the intubation tube and this was causing the sound. They gave him another dose of Decadron (a steriod to open up the airway).  He had one dose in the operating room to help prevent this from happening because we knew it happened last time but he needed more.  Once we were assured he was fine we settled in for the night. I then requested having a private room. I knew Charlie would be crying in the night and I also knew we needed to try and sleep whenever we could so having a nice quiet room was critical for us. They said their private rooms are for infectious patients. But they did have a shared room that didn't have anyone else in it yet. We knew that someone could be admitted throughout the night but we were willing to take our chances.

Charlie slept most comfortably propped up in the bed. For the rest of the night he pretty much slept and woke every 10-15 min where we could just let him know we were there and pat him gently and he would settle back down. He also liked having his "b" in his mouth that night. It was hard to see him in pain and so uncomfortable. We gave him apple juice throughout the night and he even ate some applesauce, which he then threw up because the were trying to force him to take Tylenol. The Tylenol in the hospital is not sweet like the stuff you buy at the store so he wouldn't take it. Kelly had to leave in the morning and go to Safeway to buy Tylenol which then had to be approved by the hospital pharmacist and then a doc (now we know to bring our own Tylenol).

After a restless night I was worried for the next day. But amazingly around 7am, Charlie sat up and seemed like himself again! He wanted to eat and play ball. He was smiling, talking and being his normal self. It was amazing. He ate two whole pancakes, took and quick nap and we were itching to be discharged. By 10:30am he had another dose of antibiotics, Decadron, his IV removed and we were out of there!!