Stones Surgery: Part 2

Again, please excuse any fogginess in this post. I'm running on hardly any sleep.
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Well Stone came out of surgery approximately 3.5 hours after they took him in. We received a call from his surgeon, Dr. Wattsman, that he was headed to recovery and was doing well. She did mention that once they opened him up, his condition was worse than they originally thought and t
that is was definitely the right choice to have surgery. I'll explain this a bit later.

My first look at Stone following surgery

Anyways, Stone was to spend around 45 minutes in recovery before we would meet him up in the PICU. We headed on up to the PICU and waited in a small room until they settled Stone in. We then could go see our baby boy.

Daddy looking at his boy.

He has a NG tube in his nose to suction out his belly and a central line in his chest to run fluids, medicine, and nutrition. He also had an IV in his hand.  He was attached to all kind of  monitors (heart rate, respiration, oxygen) and they had a tiny blood pressure cuff to monitor his BP. His incision is covered by gauze so I have yet to see the actual cut but it is on his left lower belly near his bellybutton and looks to be about 2 inches wide.

Uncle Nathan says I look like a robot or a transformer!!

It wasn't as scary to see him as I thought it was going to be.  He was sleeping of course as the anesthesia had not worn off yet. The nurses immediately began giving him morphine for pain and we could give him an extra little boost if he seemed to be restless and hurting.

Holding Mommys hand makes it a lot better!

He slept most of the day yesterday. He was very still only waking when he felt pain. He had very little urine output so they increased his fluids. Around 6 pm he became so restless that we were giving him his extra boost each time it became available.  His doctor decided to increase his morphine a bit to provide continuous relief however we still are using the boost occasionally.

Opening his eyes for me but still in a complete daze.

I was allowed to hold my sweet baby boy around 4 pm yesterday. He seemed happy to have some snuggles.

Mommy snuggling Stone

Mommas boy!

Daddy and Grandma also met us up in the room and had some snuggle time as well.  He was very content to lay in our arms.

Daddy and Stone

Grandma and Stone

Last night was a bit rough for me. I woke up about every hour or so to the sounds of monitors beeping, nurses coming in and out, and Stone grunting. He settled down just after 3 AM and slept pretty well until around 7 this morning. Since then he has been restless off and on. His NG tube is bothering him so we had to pin his arm under his blanket to keep him from pulling it out.

He opens his eyes every one in awhile, looks around, and falls back asleep.  I'm not sure he even realizes he's in the world right now.

There's my mommy!

So his doctor explained to me that what they thought was just malrotated intestines actually ended up being a complete malrotation which means his intestines and colon were affected. She said essentially what she found was that his colon was free floating in his body and that his intestines were attached in the wrong area by thick pieces of tissue called "Ladds Bands." She suspects all of his pain and vomiting was due to the fact the the intestines and colon would twist, but managed to untwist, relieving him of pain and not causing constant vomiting.  If at any point his intestines made a complete twist, it would have blocked off blood supply and would have become an emergency as once they make a full twist, they can't come undone on their own.  With a complete malrotation like Stones, he was at the highest risk for this twisting to occur.

E.T. Toe... And the reason Mommy didn't sleep last night!

Stone will remain in the PICU until he is no longer on continuous morphine and his bowels start to function a bit on their own. His doctor says this will be at least 3 days.  Then Stone will go to a normal pediatric floor for the remainder of his stay.

Grandma came to visit before work!

I want to say thank you for all the nice emails, messages, prayers, etc. we have received  Stone got a cute little blue bear from the youth group of a local church and my moms friend and co-worker, Sheri, brought by some Munchkins for us.  Also, thank you to everyone offering to watch Evelyn for us and/or bring Matt and Evie dinners.  It is very very much appreciated.

Teddy bear from a local church youth group.

Well, this Momma needs to try and catch a little bit of sleep before Stone wakes up again.  I'll update soon and hopefully with some better photos - right now all I have time for are cell phone photos.

Stone - 11.20.2012