Post-surgery Update

It's Sunday morning and I kept wanting to get to an actual laptop to download pics and write a proper post but it just hasn't happened. Thank goodness for the new blogger app on my iPhone because it's the only way I can keep the updates coming at this point. This will probably be pretty discombobulated but I'm a little lacking on sleep.

So Friday was pretty eventful.

Quick Recap: We arrived at the hospital at 10am and Brinton was taken back to surgery around 2pm. After 2 hours of positioning and placing the halo they began the procedure.

Hour 3,4,5 were fine.

Hour 6, I had a panic attack and tossed my cookies in the waiting room bathroom, kneeled on the floor of the bathroom for the next 20 minutes pleading with the Lord to take care of my boy. Talked on the phone to my sweet friend Shelley who called at just the right moment, snuggled into my husbands arms, cried some more, took some deep breaths and ate a salad.

Hour 7.5, 9:30pm, we met with the surgeons after the procedure was done.

We were told that:
1. his neck was really "loosey goosey" and it was definitely time to do the fusion.

2. His anatomy didn't allow for the fusion they were initially planning for so they went with a Plan B. Brinton now has 4 screws and 2 rods in his neck.

3. It was a really difficult case for them BUT they said they love being surgeons and they live for this stuff.....I never doubted he was in good hands.

4. They had no problem getting bone from his hip to graft into his neck....didn't even have to use donor bone.

5. He bled a bit but they did not wind up having to transfuse.

So, he was taken directly to PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) after surgery. They monitored him there until yesterday evening. He has done really well but has a lot of pain in his hip and neck. He is on a continuous pain pump that has a button he can push when he is in a lot of pain and it will give him a bolus amount of pain meds. He hasn't been able to tolerate anything by mouth yet except for ice chips. We tried less then an ounce of apple juice but his stomach promptly refused it. We saw the neuro doc last night and he said things looked good otherwise and we needed to just take it easy on the eating for right now.

Brinton has been moved to the normal floor now and we hopefully will see the ortho surgeon today. They are supposed to come tighten the screws on the halo today I guess. Oh and about that, the halo has 8 screws, 4 in front and 4 in back which are basically "bolted" in through his head and kind of rest at the skull. He is tolerating it fine. We turn him from Side to side every couple hours to keep him from being stuck on his back for too long.

So there is the best update I can muster right now. He has been watching a Harry Potter marathon on ABC Family and is in good spirits aside from the pain. I'm gonna go feed him some more ice chips. Thanks for your prayers, good thoughts, well wishes, and kind words.

I promise I'll get up some better photos soon.