Operation a Success!

Today went just fine. All that worrying for nothin... We got up at 4:15 and gave Hayden a bottle. Packed his bag and were at the hospital at 7 am. They called us back and all the nurses were soon falling all over him. Even nurses that had nothing to do with our procedure were stopping by to say hi because word was getting around that there was a cutie on the floor. They gave us a tiny little hospital gown, and the nurses that would be in the room with him came by to introduce themselves and promise they would take good care of him. One of them has a six month old at home and I knew she knew how I was feeling. I did not get to go back with him until he fell asleep, because they did all that in the OR and it has to be sterile. He started to get a little bit hungry and those wonderful girls brought us a rocking chair to try to calm him down. Then about 8:30 they came to take him. Not even an hour later, the surgeon was out and said it was a very successful procedure and he didn't cry at all. He did say it was a sizeable hernia and it was a good thing we went ahead with the surgery. He said there are permanent stitches on the inside that we will never see, and ones on the outside that will disolve. About 15 minutes later, they called us back again. Hayden was waking and was crying when we got back there. But I jumped in the rocking chair and rocked him back to sleep. After he woke again, we fed him a bottle and he was released. We were home by noon. When he woke from his sleep, he smiled at us and acted like nothing ever happened. He has been that way since we got home. He's a little fussy, but not much. He's such a champ. We are giving him Baby Tylenol every 4 hours for the first 24 hours to head off any pain. And the surgeon gave him a local that would last up to six hours. So maybe, the pain hasn't hit him yet. But the surgeon said with his disposition, he would get through this very easily. And so far he's been right.

In the room next to us was a 16 month old who had a groin hernia being fixed. He screamed and screamed and screamed. I felt so bad for him. They told us, only Loren and I could go back, but for some reason, this family had like 8 people over there. They kept passing him around and our nurse told us he wasn't totally woken up and they were overstimulating him. All of them but his dad left for a minute and he fell asleep and they all came back and he was back to screaming. I felt so bad for that little boy. The nurse said they had told them once, but sometimes people get very angry when you keep telling them how to treat their children.

So far, so good. I'll let you know if it gets worse, but right now things look just fine. And oh yea, I am pretty proud of us too. We didn't get upset, cry, freak out, any of the things I thought I might do. Mom and Aunt Barbara went with us and sat in the waiting room. That helped tremendously, to keep us talking about all kinds of things, instead of the surgery. So, we survived.

Congrats to the Petrucci Family! I've seen the photos and he's adorable! Check out Jenn's blog on the left to see photos of her new nephew!