Andrew's Update

Sorry for the delay in posting a follow up to last Wednesday’s news about Andrew, but it’s been a whirlwind since last Thursday. From the doctor’s standpoint, the surgery was success. Andrew dealt with being separated from us in the hospital better than I expected, as I handed him over to the nurse who then took him back to the operating room. My eyes swelled with tears, but he didn’t even look back. Which was probably good.

After what seemed like an eternity, about 2.5 hours, were all reunited. Andrew looked all puffy and his voice was scratchy. He was extremely irritable and sleepy. After about 45 minutes in the recovery room, we all left for home, where he dozed on and off in my room for the rest of the day. It was very surreal to see him so sleepy and lethargic, as you usually cannot get him to sit still. He enjoyed a full day of Noggin, with Moose A. Moose and Zee.

The next day was OK, but then Saturday posed an unexpected set of issues: the removal of the bandage. Guys, you might want to skip this section of the post. Most get squeamish when we elaborate. Additionally, anyone else that has issues reading about poop and blood might as well skip this post, too.

As we unraveled the bandage, his skin was red, swollen, bruised, and bleeding. He obviously was screaming, and it took some time to console him. It was soon bedtime, and he took a bottle and feel asleep. But then he woke several times that night extremely uncomfortable and screaming. He likes to lay on his side and he couldn’t since he couldn't fold his one leg over the other since it rubbed against his penis, and he was very gassy. Which surprised me since he hardly had anything to eat over the past 2 days. So after a sleepless Saturday night, his constipation didn’t seem to get any better. He was able to get a little out the following day, but this poor kid is getting red in the face trying to get this bowel movement out and nothing. So last night was another cranky night. It took me a long time to get him asleep and then he was up at midnight, 4am, then 5am, but then finally fell asleep again in my arms by about 6am. But of course, it was about time for me to get up for work anyway, so I’ve pretty much been up off and on since about 4 am. And still no real poop.

So I was talking to a friend at work about this and she mentioned that codeine will constipate you. He has been prescribed Tylenol with codeine as a pain medication in addition to the antibiotic. I thought it was the antibiotic, but I’m beginning to agree that it’s the codeine. So as per the doctor, we’re switching to plain Tylenol. And prune juice. Hopefully that will work. It was the last thing I expected to encounter in all this. He seems less agitated with the actual surgical site and more agitated about being constipated.

So that’s the update. And in all this sleeplessness, and worry, and anxiety, we found out on Saturday that we got the house we put the bid on! We went with this one:

So much going on right now, with 2 completely different emotions about each. Before all this, I recently lost 5 pounds, in a recent attempt to start shedding the baby weight I have yet to lose. Just when my pants were starting to feel a little looser, I ate a big chicken sandwich and large French fries from McDonald’s today. I was starving. And stressed. Oh well, so much for the diet. But I don’t feel too guilty.