When the GI doctor originally wanted to do the surgery in September, I had commented that I hated for Silas to miss a lot of school once the new school year had started. The GI doctor said, "He'll only be in the hospital one night" - leading me to believe that recovery wouldn't take all that long. That was far from true.
Even before Silas left recovery, they had trouble managing his pain. The morphine they gave him didn't do the job, and they had to give him additional meds. Once he was out of recovery, the doctor only wanted him to have Tylenol, which did very little for the great amount of pain he was in.
During his time in the hospital, they gave him a few, small bolus feeds. He wasn't even back on continuous feeds (or walking more than a couple feet) before we were kicked out of the hospital. Silas reacts to so many things that I'm sure it was for the best. However, when he was discharged, I couldn't believe they were sending him home already. He was in no condition to leave. Just riding in the wheelchair was almost unbearable.
The good thing about leaving was that I was in control of everything that went into him again - and we could get rid of the IV. The sooner we stopped putting new things into him, the sooner his reactions would end. Thankfully he hasn't gotten to the point of those crazy screaming spells he gets when he's reacting to things. But his colon's messed up again, he ran a fever for a week and a half, his skin is all dry & itchy, he's having random pains, and he just hasn't felt well - not to mention the "standard" pain from the surgery.
How do you convince a six year to walk when he's in terrible pain? (The doctor wanted him walking as soon as possible to work out the stiffness and pain.) $$$ That's right...bribery. He probably has more money than I do right now. We started offering him quarters (and sometimes nickels, dimes, or dollars) for walking. We were trying to get him to walk from his room to the living room (or vice versa), so we would leave them along the path. Once he made it to a coin, it was his to keep. And at one point, his grandmother was matching whatever we gave him. What a deal!
He did make it to school some last week, and today's his first (hopefully) full day. My next post will have some of our "First Week of School Pictures."
Janel
"Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning." Psalm 30:5b
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