Dylan's (non-heart) Surgery

Wednesday Dylan had his surgery that I had written about in an earlier post.  I was almost surprised that he was actually well enough to have it.  He had been sick the week before and had a hard time getting better.  At one point in the car he had even sighed and said, "It's hard to get well."  Where I'm sure Dylan wouldn't have complained to have the surgery postponed, I really didn't want to have to wait even longer for it.

While it isn't nearly as scary as open heart surgery, I found myself getting a little nervous for his surgery.  I really think more because I was afraid he would wake up that morning sick.  But once we were on our way, I was fine.  Dylan was surprisingly good before his surgery.  He was happy and even answered the nurses when they would ask him a few questions.  I think it helped that they planned on waiting until they had him asleep to start an IV.  They also gave him some medicine to help him feel calm and a little sleepy.

They brought out a wagon for him and let him take along a toy he had been playing with and wheeled him off to surgery.  About an hour and a half later, his doctor found me in the waiting room and told me he did well.  Said the hydrocele repair went just as planned.  Said the other part didn't quite go as planned.  There wasn't as much flexibility as there should have been plus there was an interesting growth that he nor the two associates he pulled in had ever seen (making a combination of about 60 year's experience).  But it's nothing harmful and should be fine (they did send it off to pathology to make sure).  Of course, his telling me that brought back memories of meeting with Dr. Hawkins the night before Dylan's open heart surgery and being told that in all his years as a heart surgeon, he had only seen truncus with a coarctation one other time.  I'm not sure I like Dylan being quite so unique.  Ah well.

Dylan woke up from surgery really unhappy.  He didn't like the pulse/ox or the IV.  He cried that he wanted them out and he wanted to go home.  After a while I got him to take two sips of apple juice and the nurse took everything off and I got him dressed to go home.  He cried the whole time.  Only stopped when we were heading out the door of the recovery room.

He has done pretty well.  Walks a little funny, but that's expected.  This morning he woke up showing more pain than he has since having the surgery.  It has been the only time that I haven't had to fight him to take pain medicine.  But it worked nicely and he's back to running around and playing like nothing is wrong.