Post-op

Its been a very long day, to say the least. The day started at 4:30am for us as we had to have Elias at the hospital by 6am. The doctors came to say hello and check him out, make some marks where they'd be operating. When anesthesia came, I expressed my concern about his IV not going into his head this time. She right off the bat said she could see a vein in the back of his right hand and that they'd try everything possible to not go into his head this time. Once everything was ready, we kissed our booboo goodbye and off he went. Even though I knew it was just going to be a quick surgery this time, theres something about putting your childs life in the arms of someone else and watching him be carried away as he starts to cry...its just plain scary.



Waiting to go into surgery



We went to the waiting room upstairs and about 20 minutes later I get a call from anesthesia. She said they were able to get a good vein in the back of his right hand. Thank you Lord!! She said they were just then about to start the surgery. 10 minutes later, our orthopedic doctor comes up and says he's all done (in just 10 minutes!). He took the pins out without a hitch, and he said the bone looks great and in the correct position now. Then we got a call about 25 minutes later saying he was in recovery and we could come down to see him. The nurse was rocking him when we got there and he was crying softly. We gave him a bottle (he was starving) and rocked for about an hour, and he was perfectly fine! No crying, no whining...just sitting, watching everyone get wheeled in and out. He did better than the older kids in the bays next to us. The ENT came in to discuss how his part went on the skin tags. He said they actually had some cartilidge (kinda like roots/stalks) that went deeper into his face, so he had to dig a bit to get them completely out. He said if he would have just taken them off the top of the skin, he would have had hard spots on his face from the cartilidge underneathe. So he took it all out, stitched him up with some disolveable stitches, and then put some clear liquid that acts like a bandage over top. He said he gave him a baby facelift too, which I thought was hilarious. He's awesome. Since he's a plastic surgeon, he really cares about scarring and all that, so he takes the time to plan everything out and how it will look when he heals. So as you can see in the picture, he placed the scar where shadows will naturally fall on his face. It actually purplish-blue because of the marker they used to mark it before surgery, not because of bruising. 



Before



After



We were released just an hour after he went into recovery and we went on our way home! No more casts (atleast as long as his feet stay the way they are). Just these cute little braces that he has to wear all the time, atleast for now.