Surgery day

As much as we've tried not to think about it, surgery day is upon us. I admit, I've been a little nauseous for the last week or so thinking about this day. Nathan did so well this morning being woken up at 5am. He thought he was going on an adventure with Mom and Dad in the truck, and kept commenting about how it was still dark out. We got him all bundled up, and he topped off his outfit with his customary "security blanket"....his eyeglasses. Our boy is obsessed with glasses of all kinds.
He did really well at the hospital, and we were even laughing hysterically at one point when the sedative started taking effect. That silly moment quickly passed though, as I watched my sweet little boy heavily sedated getting ready for surgery. I don't even need to say this, especially to the moms, but I can't even describe the feeling when they wheel him away from us. Rip out my heart, and stomp on it.
The hour passed fairly quickly....I managed to get some work done while waiting. When the surgeon came to meet with us, I anxiously searched his face looking for some clue. My fear all along, as been that this "lump" would be more invasive than they thought, and the surgery would go differently than expected. That's exactly what happened. Originally, they planned a one-inch incision to remove this "3 cm" mass. It ended up involving a three-inch incision to remove a 5 by 7 cm mass. The surgeon said he had never seen anything like it. Apparently, it was almost sponge-like in appearance, and ended up being multiple clusters of very small fluid-filled cysts. It extended down well past the point where the visible lump was, and also around to his back.

Recovery was positively awful. Put our sensory-sensitive boy in a strange environment, with an IV in his hand, monitors hooked up to his toe, strange clothing on....oh, and add sedation and general anesthesia. Not pretty. He was pretty much unconsolable until we left the hospital. He was a totally different boy once we got him into the truck. I was concerned about him when we left because he still hadn't been able to keep anything down and was having some blood sugar issues. His body temp was at 96...he was cold, clammy and pale. Fortunately, once we got him home he started to eat and drink, and recovered fairly quickly!

He was so excited to receive the get-well card and present Emma picked out for him...such a sweet girl. He took a good nap today, and we've tried to keep the pain meds flowing. Tonight at bed time was the first time he complained about it hurting...otherwise, he's been more than happy to show it off!

We didn't quite get to breathe the sigh of relief we'd hoped today, since we still don't know what it is that they removed from our sweet boy. While the surgeon doesn't think it looks like anything scary, we won't be able to fully rest well until we hear back from Pathology on Thursday. We're so glad to have today behind us, and hope he has a speedy recovery.