Surgery Day 1: Continued

I know what you're thinking. GO TO SLEEP, WOMAN.  But I'm not listening.  Actually, I have already taken the advice of two friends and popped some Tylenol PM, so I should be dozing off shortly, but like I said... I want to update because I know there are people out there who want to know, and because someone down the road will have to go through this, and I'd like them to have some resources!

Praise to God!  Our afternoon wait went by rather quickly, and that's a good thing because I'm pretty sure my heart rate was elevated for the entire 3 hours that Henry was under the knife.  Blood pressure too.  His surgery was supposed to take 4 hours, so that was awesome!

The craniofacial surgeon met us immediately following the surgery to give us a report.  He told us that Henry did awesome... he started with more blood than most babies and lost less blood than the average baby!  We'll come back to this.  But we immediately got to go back to ICU and see Henry when the surgery was over.  (I was expecting about 2 more hours after they were finished w/ the surgery.)

When we went back to see him he was not very swollen yet.  He was just resting peacefully... with several IVs, catheter, and oxygen mask of course!  His head already looked REALLY good - much shorter from front to back.  His scar looks good, too.  No bandage at all, just some antibiotic ointment on top of it.  I cannot wait to see the shape after much of the swelling goes down in about 2 weeks!

For the rest of the night our family was in and out, and we were just talking to him and holding his little hand.  He was so sweet, and he squeezed our fingers and responded to our voices.  Very sleepy, and he did open his eyes for just a few sweet seconds!  But they were starting to get more swollen as the night went on... his head became very squishy.  Kinda cool, but also a little weird to feel.  He's on pain meds, which make him sleepy.  I am eager for him to eat something - word on the street is that he may get apple juice, which would be so fun for him AND for me!

Anyway, after they took his first blood sample they said his hemoglobin was low, but the doctor wanted to wait 4 more hours to see if it went up at all.  We could tell he thought it would go up, but when they retested it had gone down.  The doctor said he was very disappointed based on what I said earlier... that he had hardly lost any blood and that he had tons of blood to start with... but it's not the amount of blood that they are testing for, so...... MEDICAL STUFF!  Who knows?  He said at that point it was safer to have the transfusion than not to have it.  He said if it was his kid (he has an 8 month old baby girl), then he'd do the transfusion.  Obviously we were not going to argue with that.

Different than what we wanted, but God is faithful and good. His ways and thoughts are higher than ours. Always always always!

Okay, as you can tell, I am super out of it.  Okay... hahahahaha.  I think that Tylenol PM is starting to kick in.  Sooooooooooo, I went home at 9 PM, and Matt is staying at the hospital tonight.  This made it much easier for me to leave.   I don't think I am forgetting anything except to tell you that for those of you who followed my updates today and prayed, I am so very thankful.  THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Now, I gg rest so I can have all the energy for that sweet boy tomorrow.  His eyes will probably be purple and swollen shut when I get to the hospital.  Love ya peeps!