Happy New Year and the Follow-Up

So I'm maybe a little centered on my son's health crisis right now.

We made it out of the hospital just in time to be at home for Rosh HaShana and to have to scramble for babysitting for Yom Kippur. I am not about to send my still-recovering-from-surgery kid to play with tons of other bigger kids at shul right now and catch whatever is going around all the different schools. Although I had no choice but to return to work immediately (don't even get me started about that - but they really have all been so suppotive and concerned) and therefore send him to HIS school. And that was an ordeal as well.

After two and a half weeks in the hospital, the first day back to daycare we wanted him to ease into things and get out of there at an early hour of the afternoon - 2:30 or 3ish. But somehow it got longer and longer and by the time 4:30 came around, he was still there at school. I was not a happy camper and pretty much fumed for a few hours after that and didn't go get my clingy, cranky child - who I hadn't left for more than a few hours at a time for the past 3 weeks - till long after 6. (He was already at the grandparents' by then)

So we made it through the first week somehow and are now into the second week out of the hospital. Meanwhile they sent me home with no antibiotics or pain meds for this child. Hey, they did give him an epidural (feeling no pain!)And both antibiotics and pain meds in the hospital intraveneously and even 2 doses of pain meds by mouth, but even after the outpatient ear tubes procedure they sent me home with BOTH oral antibiotics and a prescription for liquid Tylenol with codine for him to take as needed. This was a slightly more invasive procedure (don't you agree)and a bit of a longer hospital stay to say the least.

So tomorrow we have the follow up appt with the surgeon. And of course Jonathan managed to already have a serious cough - so much so that he woke himself up last night and almost threw up. He did cough so much this evening that he vomitted a little, I actually expected more.
So I expect a chest X-ray and an inspection of the incision and drainage sites and I don't know what else except a lot of general crankiness on the part of Mr. J. Luckily my brother and sister-in-law managed to somehow send him an amazing gift that arrived yesterday - I'm sure to devote a whole post for that one :)

Another milestone - I actually managed to remove the huge gauze pad (Sunday night) that was over the drain site (which caused all sorts of trauma and drama for such a small wound) and get a quick peek to at the steri-strip that was over the actual incision. Not to mention the other 2 Band-Aids that are covering the original chest tube sites. All of this despite a hyper-sensitive 2 year old who doesn't want to see his "boo-boos".
During the entire time he was stuck in the hospital bed he was covered by either a sheet or a towel so as not to see or remind him of his "boo-boos", despite the tubes hanging off his chest that were connected to the drains taped to the floor and the IV that was sometimes connected to the IV pole at the side of the bed. Not to mention the ever-present pulse-ox monitor that was fitted to his big toe with a glowing red light that he had to have covered by socks (and the sheet)at all times.

Bathing has also been a challenge, but every time seems slightly less traumatic. We'll get there. He's only 2 and bathing is an issue anyway since he doesn't get to swim in the bathtub with his toys right now. Now I can pretend to give him kisses on his tummy and sneak a peek at those bandaids and he lets me get away with it whereas at the beginning, he wouldn't let me touch his shirt at all. As my husband says - "Step by Step". We're getting there.