Surgery Day!

Yesterday was the day we've spent 2 1/2 months waiting for. To get all these pesky little things take care of at once and put them behind us!

In the Pre-op exam room. Asher was kinda loving the attention, and he really enjoyed the company of the Serbian translator.

Got a little Versed did ya, Asher?

Yep, that head is pretty darned heavy!

Then he was taken away from us. He was beyond loopy at that point and really didn't care at all. During the 3 1/2 hour surgery he had his tonsils and adenoids removed, an incision made in his ear drums to check for fluid (his drums are too scarred to be able to see fluid through them),  a bronchoscopy to check his airway since he has a history of tracheolaryngeal malacia, and endoscopy with biopsy to rule out Celiac disease, a colonoscopy and rectal biopsy to rule out Hirschsprung Disease, unburied his penis, circumcision, and some other rectal work of which I'll leave out the details. The poor kid doesn't have one single orifice that wasn't touched, and he has stitches on the most sensitive ones. Poor baby!! And I have to say, I've never seen a "cast" on a peinis before. So there.

After surgery there were lots of tears. Those of you with post-institutionalized children will understand our pleasure at not only seeing those tears, but that he was initiating hugs and kisses from both Dad and Mom. And, he LOVED the oxygen mask. Silly boy.

Then we went up to our massive room. "The Suite". The Amplatz Children's hospital is designed with families in mind, as all children's hospitals should be. The space between the bed and the back wall is "family area" and hospital staff are not to enter that area. They're to stay on the near side of the bed. 

 
Doesn't everyone need three TV screens? A 52 inch and two 30 somethings. The room has Wii, DVD, and everything else you can think of. You can have Wii going on one screen and a movie on the other, and regular TV on the third screen, or you can put internet on one of them. Parents and kids can be entertained at the same time. The big screen TV also has a camera on it so kids can video conference with their family and friends at home or their classrooms at school.


I mentioned earlier that Asher loved the oxygen mask. When he is scared, nervous, or just plain unsure of what's going on he hides behind his hand. We couldn't figure out why he liked the mask so much until we realized that whenever a new person walked into the room he'd put the mask TIGHT on his face. He was hiding behind it. One of those sad but cute kind of things.

He has been eating, drinking and peeing really well (the good part about the fact he's already on pureed foods.) and will probably be going home today. That first poop is not gonna be fun and I kind of wanted to hang out here for that but I think they'd rather we go home.