Healing

From Bambini4

Nico is healing well despite having had anther cold for the duration. This weekend Barbara scheduled play dates every day despite my reservations, but with our friends kids that are the same age. It would have been fun to do more Easter things with them, but the risk of infection from older kids is significantly higher.

Nico needs 6 weeks to heal. If this goes well, he will never have to deal with this again. If an infection sets in, the complications could have him back in surgery at least 3 more times. We have read many stories like this which is why we put so much effort into finding the right surgeon and taking every possible precaution to reduce the risk of anything that might interfere with his healing.

All the Doctors admitted that the real magic of the surgery is not the knife, but the bodies ability to heal itself after such trauma.

Barbara has been obsessive about getting food into him. Sometimes we prepare three different dishes because his taste changes like the wind direction. If he had his way, he would eat carb's like bread all the time.

Some foods he refuses to eat unless he is on papa's lap. That's the magic spot where the good stuff happens like cool video's and exciting restaurants. I have been successful recently in getting him to eat grapefruit this way. It is very difficult to get raw fruit into him, but this is especially important for Vitamin C while is fighting the cold.

The healing is going well and he is not so sensitive in the area. With the help of benedcite, our Dulla, I took the Catheter out this weekend which is not pleasant but he was very good. I have read that it causes a lot of discomfort so I am sure he is feeling better now. Three of us held him on the changing table while I snipped the suture and gently removed the long tube.

The doctor said it would come out easily, but that's like the workshop manual that uses phrase like "undo retaining bolt and remove ball joint". In reality you need a large ball peen hammer and 20 minutes of heavy pounding to get it loose. I was terrified that it would be stuck and I would pull the repair apart while blood gushed everywhere.

It went very smoothly, but I had a knot in my stomach all day and I am sure Nico could feel my fear when I did it.

This has been the most psychologically un-nerving experience. When combined with lack of sleep, you have to have a strong resolve and great confidence in your decisions otherwise it can be very difficult to navigate.

The Doctor had very little bedside manner but I could tell that he was razor sharp. When I walked over to the main hospital with his administrator, she mentioned that some parents complain about this. I told her that it didn't bother me but i could understand how parents that need reassuring would come up short with this doctor.

So far everything is going great. We have another 5 weeks to go.

Happy Easter to all of you and thank you for all your emails.