jared's surgery

here is jared and i in recovery. he was just super out of it and sleepy.
this was about 45 minutes later. he was more alert and very very grumpy. poor thing.
these are two of the most bored children on the face of the earth this day.
there is a story behind his picture. each family is given a cubbie to wait in that has a phone and such in the waiting room. well, the tv is in the neighboring cubbie. so kurtis was hanging over the wall watching tv. that was all fine, until he started farting....loudly!! that's where the big grin comes from. and you know, i gotta tell ya, by that time, i didn't care. he was bored out of his mind and if letting some gas go was bringing him some happiness, that was great. i must say, we all laughed and it took our minds off the surgery for a bit.
this is right before they took jared back to surgery. they brought the bed to transport him, but of course i held him...he would have crawled off. so kurtis hopped on and got to ride through the hospital.

i'll start with monday. everyone but jared had recovered from the stomach flu. he still had a sour stomach. we've also known for sometime that he has a peri-anal fistula. it's like cyst. this one just so happened to be located on the right side of his rectum. it's been there since he was born. it is like a lump. it gets bigger and smaller now and then and has never caused a problem. if it were to get inflamed, then we would put him on antibiotics. well, by monday i knew it was inflamed, so i took him to the doctor. we did the antibotic thing and waited for it to go down. unfortunately, it didn't get smaller. it kept growing. on wed, the pediatrician told me to go ahead and make another appt with the pediatric surgeon...whom we have already seen. well, i did that, and i couldn't get in until the following monday. meanwhile, jared is in alot of pain. i had him on ibuprofen and tylenol around the clock. and he wouldn't sit. it hurt too much. thursday morning he woke up with a fever. later that day i called the pediatric surgeon's office again to get advice about what to do about this lump until my appt. well, after describing how fast it's been growing, and how he had the fever, and how obviously painful it was, she told me to bring him to the urgent care at the children's hospital. well, we got there at about 4pm. i had all 3 kids with me and chuck was in his last class of the day. chuck and i didn't have cell phones. but our great friends, melani and brad do. and brad was in class with chuck. so i called melani and melani called brad and chuck got the message and got to the hospital. in the meantime, jared was checked by the nurses and the surgeon. they said they were going to need to drain the fistula and that was done in the operating room. he would be put under using general anesthetic. they tranported us to the operating room entrance...where you drop off your loved one. we waited there with jared for probably 20 minutes while the nurses and dr. got ready. sadly, chuck was in the hospital, but couldn't find us. they told him to go where we would be waiting after jared was taken back to surgery. well, moms out there, i tell you what. no matter how minor the surgery, having to hand your precious baby over to the nurse who takes him back to surgery is horrible. i've watched it happen in movies and tv shows many times, and i've told chuck that i never want to have to do that. well, i've done it twice now, and i hate it. jared's surgery only lasted for about 30 minutes. he did very well, and we were able to take him home that night. his wound as some of you know, is very gruesome. it's large and let's say ...very open. it's shocking how fast he's recovering and how much he's wanting to play and crawl around as if nothing happened. i love that about children. they are so resilient. it's been super busy around here since then. everytime he has a stool he has to have a 5 minute sits bath. and being on an antibiotic means he has the runs and has many stools a day. but even with all that, we are so happy to have him home with us and feeling so much better.