Helicopters Welcome... :-)

Each day seems to get better as far as pain for Kade.  He has been able to space himself out between 4-6 hours, but typically towards the 6 hour mark. He is still lying flat in his warming bed and hasn't moved back to his crib yet.  He has been on his back not moving at all really since Tuesday.  :(  He is going to be really sore when they start moving him.  I was back and forth on going to the hospital today.  First because I am so tired...tired from lack of sleep, tired from driving to Baton Rouge every day (sometimes twice) for the past three and a half months and tired of leaving my other baby.  She is doing fine, but I haven't seen her that much lately with this week being so busy for Kade.  Then, I was considering not going because we can't hold him.  All we can do is sit on side of his bed and hold his hand and talk to him.  As much as I love doing that and making him smile and coo, a lot of times he is sleeping and I certainly don't want to wake him.  When he finally gets to sleep, waking him is not an option with the amount of pain he has been having.  I decided to go because the thought of him going an entire day without seeing a person that he knew makes me pretty much physically ill.  I couldn't just leave him there like he was property of Woman's Hospital now could I?

When I got there, I was soooo happy I decided to go. He was soooo alert and just looking around.  About five mins after I got there he started crying and crying and crying. We couldn't soothe him no matter what we did. He was crying to the point of almost holding his breath. It came out of nowhere....so the nurse decided to give him his morphine.  literally within like 4 mins, he was smiling and cooing.  LOL  Poor thing was loaded on his meds, but he DESERVES IT!!! He was in the best possible mood after that dose. I was able to get som video of him smiling.  I'll take him smiling however it comes....even if he was on his meds, he was still cute as a button.

TMI (warning)
The nurse said that he did have a smear in his diaper, so that means the surgery was a success and things are possibly starting to move and work.  The surgeon will more than likely come in tomorrow or Tuesday and say that they will start attempting to feed him a tiny tiny bit and see how he does.  In the grand scheme of things with Kade's condition, the next several weeks will be a good indication of how he will handle his Short Gut Syndrome. Will he dump or will he not?  The docs have said that he may o fine and adapt ok since he doesn't know any other way.  They have also said that he "can do it" with 47 cm of bowel.  Time will tell....and I know there are enough prayer warriors out there to make sure he handles it, right? 

I can't remember if I wrote this in the update from surgery, but when we met with the surgeon, she told us two really good things:

• When she went into surgery, he had more illeum (the part that he lost in the bad surgery that they thought was pretty much all gone) than she expected. She said he had at least an extra 2 cm or so I think.
• He has his ICV (ileocecal valve). This is very important. She wasn't sure if he kept that from the previous surgery.  This valve is responsible for  (and excuse my non-doctor description) stopping the food and allowing the acids and vitamins to be absorbed prior to going into the colon. So it is essentially the thing that allows you to "hold it" after you eat without eating and it literally running through you.  Sorry, that is the only way I know how to explain it...  :-/ If you are still lost, I suggest Google...lol

So beyond that, it is just a waiting game.  They will hopefully pull the last tube that is suctioning out the bile in his belly tomorrow.  Once that tube is pulled, it is possible that he will be able to move more in his bed and possibly stretch a little bit....not looking forward to that. It is going to hurt and be so sore!!

Thanks for the continued prayers and if anyone has a helicopter that they are willing to loan me so I can get to and from BR within a shorter time period, I would appreciate it. So will by gas tank! LOL
xoxo
G

P.S. Thank you WBR for lowering the speed limit to make it take us even LONGER to get to and from Baton Rouge.  How about pulling people over that are turning at the "no turns" spots instead of pulling over people for going 51 in a 45? grrr