When we arrived at the hospital for surgery, I expected that Chase would be plenty fussy from not eating much. He surprised me instead and was incredibly relaxed and barely made a peep. He had tried out the Pedialyte but was thoroughly unimpressed! Despite not having much to eat he fell asleep in my arms until time to go back. Even though this is the second time going through this, it's not any easier handing your baby over to complete strangers. Tears flowed easily as I watched them walk away with him and the anxiety set in.
The next part went amazingly quick. They took him from me at 11 am, called to tell me they were starting the procedure at 12 pm, then called again to tell me they were done at 1 pm. I couldn't wait to go see him and to kiss him and love on him as much as I could! When they allowed me in the PICU he was intermittently sleeping and crying and I couldn't help but hurt for him as I could tell he had some pain. The morphine helped with that. Unfortunately the IV in his neck (they had a difficult time getting a vein) infiltrated causing him to look terribly swollen in his neck and chest. By 10 o'clock at night he calmed down and started to sleep more. I tried to feed him later but he just wasn't all that interested. Then at 1 am he vomited everything in his stomach and for fear of dehydration, they started another IV to give him fluids. He was able to get more sleep after that and I could tell he was starting to feel better. By morning he was eating better and starting to act like the baby I know.
The neurology nurse came by around 3pm and gave us the clearance to be discharged from the hospital. Chase was back to behaving like himself with just some swelling to remind us of what he had just been through. He has two small incisions on the top of his head about 2 inches across. We'll be keeping a close eye on him over the next few days and just try to relax and encourage healing. I'm just happy to be done with the worst of it and happy to be able to cuddle my little boy again!