Update on James and his surgery

in the recovery room right after surgery... not too happy :(

doing better that night...




daddy being funny to try and make James laugh :) it worked!





grandpa giving loves after visiting, when it was time to say bye-bye

eating breakfast with daddy on sunday morning

eating breakfast and playing with daddy on sunday morning

watching movies with mommy on sunday morning

in the car, ready to go home!!!

mommy and daddy "rigged" a hospital bed at home for James :)

James with his big ducky that great grams brought over for him for easter!

well, we are home now. we got home this afternoon around 3:30pm. i am really glad that we got to come home today and not tomorrow. there was talk yesterday about possibly having to wait until monday to be released... i am glad that that didn't happen...

we didn't end up having any internet access at the sharing place, so i haven't had a chance to blog until now. i'm at my mom and dad's using their computer, since ours is still out of commission.. it will probably be down for several days, so this might be the last blog in a while, so i'll give you everything i can think of thus far..

here's how the trip to Sac and the surgery went:

Thursday: we left Paradise at about 6pm and drove down to the Vagabond Inn in Sac. it was a noisy hotel in a little bit of a weird part of town near the freeway, but we were just glad to have a bed and a shower. James slept pretty well despite the noise, and that was good because we had to wake up really early...

Friday: we woke up at 4:45am, and got ready to go to the hospital. we checked in at 5:30am, and James was wide awake, having fun crawling up to the automatic doors at the hospital to try and make them open. he had some anxiety about being there, and the nurses touching him and what-not, but for the most part all of the pre-surgery stuff went really well.. they gave him some versed, a drug that makes him drunk and not care as much about being taken away from mommy and daddy...

He was in surgery by 7:30am, and it took about 2 hours.. the doctor came into the waiting room right after surgery to explain to us how everything went, and he even had pictures (REAL pictures) of the actual procedure - like James' actual insides - for us to look at... that was new and different... seth loved it. hahah.

He said that he was able to remove all of the cysts and that James' spinal cord layed back down nicely where it should be so well that he made "an executive decision" not to place a shunt at all! it's kind of a long story, but this is good news because it made everything a lot less invasive.

James was then in recovery for a couple of hours, and seth and i were there with him when he woke up and when he was sort of figuring out what had "happened" to him.. he had some pain in the beginning, so they gave him pain meds like morophene and waited for him to wake up completely..

then they moved him to the 6th floor where the pediatric special care unit is located, and he got a room ALL TO HIMSELF which was such a blessing, i can't even begin to tell you! He had a great night Friday night and slept most of it because of the morophene.. and he wasn't overly dramatic or scared about the nurses.. he always just wanted mommy to lay down next to him every single second to comfort him... which i didn't mind doing :)

Saturday: James continued to have really really good nurses, and NO ROOM-MATES which made mommy very very happy. he made improvements and was definately in less pain, so he was able to switch from morophene to tylenol with codiene. daddy slept at the sharing place from about 7pm friday night until about 5am saturday morning, when he came to the hospital to relieve me.. and then i went to the sharing place and slept from about 6am till about 8:30am. then i went and had breakfast and came back to the hospital to relieve seth so that he could get himself some breakfast...

in the afternoon, grandma and grandpa and aunt lynds came down to visit, and they brought tons of easter presents for James and he loved them all! by the time they left that evening, James had improved so much that he was even playing little games with them and laughing and having a good time...

James had a big throw-up incident saturday night after dinner, but he had a nurse that was REALLY really good at giving sponge baths and he didn't even smell after that! mom (I, Lynae) was amazed!

mommy and daddy did the same thing saturday night / sunday morning as they had the night before with taking turns sleeping at the sharing place and the hospital, and it worked out really well.. they gave James a big boy bed on saturday night, so mommy could lay down with him much easier (which is good for an 8 month pregnant lady!! hahaha!)

Sunday: when i got my breakfast break by myself on sunday morning, i found a wonderful new restaurant within walking distance to the hospital, called "the Crepe Escape" .... ok, the name alone should give you the hint that this place is a little bit of heaven on earth, but in case that didn't convince you, here's some more details...

it's within walking distance to the hospital

they serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner

they have amazing crepes, both regular breakfast-type ones and fruity "dessert" type ones..

they have an orange juice machine that you can watch the oranges being squeezed straight into your cup to make fresh squeezed OJ - yum, yum!

they have oelettes, pancakes, sausage, bacon, and other "boy things" so that even if seth went there, he would like it. they even have beer on tap!

my crepe was served with rosemary potatoes just like they serve at the sin of cortez

and last but not least, i looked at the menu to see if they had anything that james might actually be able to eat if he went there, and to my delightful surprise, they even had CHICKEN NUGGETS on their kid's menu!!!!

Overall: it was a pleasant experience. james got released late sunday morning and slept the whole way home. we made a bed for him in the guest room / movie room at our house on the floor... he's been watching movies all evening, and his great grams and bestifar came to visit for a little bit. they brought a huge ducky stuffed animal for james to snuggle with while he gets better..

i'm going to take my car in to the transmission shop tomorrow evening, which believe me, is a story in and of itself!! but of any week for my car to be in the shop, this will be a good one, since i will be just hangin' out at home with james while he recovers anyway...

hopefully we will get our computer back this week... i am trying to get a friend of ours who knows some things about computers to help us "reinstall our operating system..." whatever that means.... sigh...

james will probably be done needing the tylenol with codiene by this weekend, and that's when he can have a real bath for the first time, too, so we will be glad for that!!! he should be "back to himself" in about a week or so... but total recovery is about 6 weeks because the bones that they had to move and put back during surgery need to heal up completely... so he won't be completely recovered until about the time Josiah comes! 7 weeks left until his due date!

James needs to have another MRI and see dr. ciricillo, the neurosurgeon, in about a month from now. we will have to see how that all works out with me being soooo pregnant and all! sigh...

we are just hoping and praying now that this removal of the cyst brings about some significant changes and strengths and improvements in James' overall function, but mostly we're hoping for better trunkal tone, better balance, better fine motor skills, and better control over his gagging and vomiting... and maybe even an improvement in his leg function and bladder and bowel control... we will just have to wait and see....

i will write again in probably about a week or so.....

Lynae