Carter's Surgery

Carter had a soft palate cleft that was discovered at birth.  It made for a whirlwind of a couple first days with him.  Well when he was two weeks old we set the date for his surgery to have it repaired, August 17th.  That date was burned into my brain and I wanted 9 months for that date to arrive.  I became more and more anxious the closer it got.  About two weeks before surgery Carter got an ear infection.  Then just a week before I noticed him pulling on the other ear and the ear infection had become a double ear infection.  I was really nervous that they would reschedule the surgery and I knew I couldn't handle that emotionally.  Luckily they said that we could go ahead with the surgery and plans stayed in tacked.

August 17th....
The night before had been long since I could not sleep.  We headed to the hospital at 7:45am to be there by 8:30.  We got checked in and Carter got checked out and changed for his surgery.  We then waited and waited as they were behind(of course) but Carter was a trooper!  Having not eating since 5 that morning with just juice he was stellar.

10:30 rolled around and the anesthesiologist came and introduced himself and took Carter back to surgery.  He didn't even cry and was super calm. Then we were off to the waiting room.  They told us it would be an hour and a half to two hours.  We decided to go to lunch and they would page us if news came.  We came back and not 5 minutes later the nurse from the OR called and said they were finishing up and Carter had done great.  He didn't even cry when they gave him the gas to put him to sleep.  Then shortly after that call the doctor came out to talk to us.  Everything had gone smoothly and it was a narrow cleft.  It was a simple procedure for him.  I then had to wait till they called me back to recovery.  This was the longest 40 minutes of my life!

Recovery.....

When I went back to recovery a nurse was holding him and he was back asleep.  They said he was not happy when he wasn't being held and really calm when being held.  I was more than happy to take him and hold him.  It was probable the saddest looking thing ever. 

They had put in a tongue stitch.  The stitch held his tongue forward so he wouldn't swallow it because of the anesthesia.   Then we got to go up to his room where we would be trying to get him to a point where he would go home.  The nurses where all super nice and I love Primary Children's Hospital because of all the extras they have for these little ones and there families.  Once in the room we made a plan to get on top of his pain and gave him some morphine.  This would be his main pain killer this day because he didn't want to eat and loratab makes empty tummies upset.
 
 August 18th....

The night wasn't too bad and he only woke up a couple times.  The next morning the doctor came up to see him and removed his tongue stitch.  Then Carter ate!  He wouldn't drink for us but he was ready to eat!  He also wanted to play which was hard with his moniter line and IV attached but it was good to see.

  We slowly got him off of the morphine and switched him to loratab. 

August 19th....

That night his IV started to leak and clotted so they had to put in a new one and Carter wasn't happy.  He continued to eat but not drink anything so an IV was important.  The next day his IV clotted again so we decided to give him 3 hours.  If he didn't drink by then we would have to give him a new IV.  I prayed and prayed that he would drink!  Then even though this boy didn't like juice before his surgery I tried to give him juice in  his bottle and he took it!  I was so excited and even did a little dance.  When the doctor came in that morning and heard that he had drank some juice he released him!  I was so excited!  That day we gave him one last dose of loratab at home and since then he has just had Motrin. 

Now....

Everyday he took less and less medicine for the pain and as of today he has had none!  He is eating just fine and is my happy Carter again.  It was a hard experience but I'm grateful for modern medicine that was able to do this for Carter.  Now we just have to watch his speech development and possibly do speech therapy.  It amazes me how fast he bounced back and how well he handled it.  I am so grateful for priesthood blessings and pray as I don't know how I would have gotten through this without either.