Surgery Update

I'm so far behind on my posts that I started to avoid posting all together. So my compromise is, more pictures, no photo editing, fewer words, and maybe it will be posted. What I assume everyone is waiting for is an update after surgery.

I love this little outfit because of the puppy on the front. I've always pictured James' natural smile like a puppy dog smile because his top lip forms two Us and looks like two smiles. Every time I tried to take his picture with this outfit, he was either asleep or grumpy so I didn't get the picture of his puppy smile with his puppy outfit. I tried one last time the morning of the surgery, but this is the best I got.

After we were admitted to pre-op, James showed off his adorable smile. He also talked and talked to everyone who came into the room. There were other kids screaming down the hall, but James was happy and cooing. The nurses LOVED it.
I had to get pictures of this huge smile before surgery. I was so worried that it would hurt him to smile and he would smile less afterwards.

laughing away
James fell asleep in my arms shortly after this and just before I handed him over. He woke up when I gave him to the Anesthesiologist.
Surgery went well. We got text message updates as milestones were made which was very nice. The tubes in his ears were placed first. The lip surgery went quicker than we expected and we tried to get him in for his second MRI/CT scan that day, but because of an emergency the scanners were not available.

James' hearing test went much better in his bad ear but was strangely worse in his good ear. So, he has some hearing in his right ear, even if it is a severe to profound loss, at least I know he has nerves responding somehow there. His left ear still showed a conductive loss which we expected to get better after tubes, but it was actually worse on some frequencies. The audiologist and ENT say that the anesthesia does not have an effect on evoked potential hearing tests, but anesthesiologists and neurosurgeons disagree (as does the literature). However when I talked with our ENT at the follow up appointment on the 29th and asked him about the drop in response, he said "15 decibels" is within error range for this test. He still denied that anesthesia has an effect. I wonder if Anesthesia does have an effect, but it is just marginal in comparison to the 15 decibel error range which seems kind of large to me. Friday we have another audiology appointment doing a behavioral test to get a better picture of his hearing, and then a hearing aid consult since his one ear needs a hearing aid ASAP. By having a binaural hearing loss (loss in both ears) he qualifies for TONS of free programs in Denver (sign language instruction in the home for us, Early Intervention speech and language therapy, Sign Language Reading programs etc).

After surgery, James was sore. He didn't want to do anything but sleep. We had to keep him dosed on his pain meds or he would wake up in pain. We also had to watch his oxygen because his monitor kept coming off and his oxygen went low a few times. The first few hours, I did not know if I could make it through. I am dreading the next surgery in a few months.

I was grateful for Nana's help relieving me for a few hours to not stress over his monitors and to be able to get up and move. I had not slept much the night before, so a short nap was SO helpful.

He ate well when he was hungry. He didn't eat much (as was expected) but he ate, and I didn't have to squeeze out the milk too much.
Here he is in his "no-no s". He had to wear these for three weeks, unless someone was around to keep his hands out of his mouth. Dani tried to help with this and even threatened to put them on him herself even though I was right there watching him.The morning after the surgery, he was much more alert and you can see the dermabond on his lip.
When the nurse came in he was happy and cooing again. She mentioned that she had never heard a baby talk that much. Such a strong little one!