Well, I’m able to post from the hospital tonight, so I will! The muscle spasms were quelled when I got here, but then got far worse around dinner time. He had more valium after dinner and really re-laaaaaxed. He started reciting his lines from Looney Tunes slightly slurred but with great enthusiasm. This went on for about two hours. Very funny, since it’s the first that Jon’s looked out of pain since surgery. It took Jon another hour to get to sleep, itching and pulling on his various tubes, including the catheter (ow!, but he can’t feel it because of the epidural). He’s starting to stir now (11:00 pm), and this may be the firt trouble of the night: all of his drugs need recharging at the same time and ACKKK the epidural alarm just went off, twice as loud as an alarm clock. Hey, Jon didn’t wake up. Well, we’ll see…signing off for the evening…arg, second alarm…man, it’s like mission control here!

Now back to our regularly scheduled topic…

Last night and today was a day of alternating calm but grumpy sessions and agonizing muscle spasms. The pain-management team has ratcheted up the levels of medication in his system a bit—more Tylenol, higher doses of epidural narcotic, and some valium-like medication in his I.V. for the muscle spasms (I forgot what it was called. I’m tired.)

Consequently, Jon was a bit spacey today, which made entertaining him a bit hit and miss. He wanted TV, videos, DVDs or videogames, but only particular ones. I picked up a handful of videos from the playroom cupboard; only Dora and Blue’s Clues would do. When a hospital staffer couldn’t find the Elmo Nintendo game that he remembered playing last time we were in hospital, Jon was downright snarky. He also developed an unattractive habit of calling “Nurse! Come!” in the same commanding tone he uses for Photon.

This would all be annoying except that much of the day he really is in pain: every time he gets repositioned in bed (every few hours, to prevent bedsores), when he gets his bandages checked, or otherwise gets poked and prodded by hospital personnel. Add to this the muscle spasms, his lack of sleep because of all the noise and taking of vitals every few hours, and you end up with an extremely ticked-off customer. And who can blame him?

(A very peeved aside here—Jon’s hooked up to a machine that monitors his heartrate, breathing rate, oxygen saturation, blood pressure, etc. etc. If Jon’s vitals change significantly (if his 0₂ level drops, say) it starts to beep loudly. I always assumed that this was something we’d just have to put up with. However, last night the machine was beeping so often that the nurse finally took pity on us and turned off the signal in our room, but still keeping tabs on him from the nursing station. I didn’t realize you could do this—why the heck don’t they do that all the time?!)

Surgery finished at 2:30, a complete success, five-and-a-half hours after we started, just like the surgeon estimated. A few hours in the post-anesthesia care unit, and an extremely grumpy Jon is now in his own room 5A27. Peter’s heading home in a couple of hours.

Well, we’re past lunch now and we’re still here, as families come and go. The Room seems lighter than past visits –a lot of the procedures are an hour or less, so the parents aren’t nearly as worried. The “lifers”–folks who in for 4-6 hours–have started to spot each other, but any small talk is subdued. Everyone is dealing with their stress as in their own little ways. Laura exaggerates me doing work 🙂 —I have one task that is the computer equivalent of folding laundry. Takes my mind off the moment.

Jon should be out in the next hour; when he’s past the groggy stage we’ll let you know, and we’ll also let you know what kid of hardware he’ll be wearing for the next six weeks. Stay tuned.

An hour and a half into the operation and no news is good news, I guess… We haven’t been able to get the free wifi working with our laptop yet 🙁 so I’m typing this on the hospital library computer.

Quite the range of parents/relatives and surgeries in the operation waiting room: One family was out within half an hour and got a little lecture about dental health (bottle mouth?); I’m guessing that another toddler is in for cleft palate reconstruction. Peter’s actually getting some work done, while I’m doing mindless sudokus and getting stumped on ridiculously easy ones.

Four more hours to go….

Well, here goes Jon’s third major surgery, almost eight months to the day of his second one. The operation starts this morning at 8 a.m. at Sick Kids, but of course that means we’ve been at the hospital since 6 a.m. (in part making sure the kid isn’t tempted to eat or drink anything right before the surgery.) Surgery is estimated to last five or six hours. For details on what’s being done, read about Jon’s first operation from six years ago (start at the bottom of the page), and pretend it reads “left leg/hip”.

There was a bit of tension when Jon got winged by whatever virus is going around just before the March Break. You have to be healthy to go into surgery. He shook all of the symptoms easily, save for some sinus congestion that just…kept…holding…on. But he’s mostly better, and the anaesthesiologists say that this is minor and not an impediment.

Huge thanks to Pam who is dogsitting at our place throughout the day and trying to ensure that poor Photon won’t go too mental.