Surgery and the mummy wrap

You can see that he got his hearing aid back right after surgery so he could communicate.

Here is our boy right after surgery.  Once he went back to surgery, we all sat in the designated room for relatives waiting for loved ones in surgery and well, waited.  There is always a sense of excitement with butterflies in the stomach when one of my kids is in surgery receiving a cochlear implant.  I know that this surgery is about to change their lives forever.  They will be able to hear and in this case, my son's hearing will be restored as much as is possible.  The hearing that was taken from him from a still unknown source.  It is still weird to think that something went in and attacked my son's hearing and stole almost all of it away in his left ear.  We knew all of the best doctors.  We knew where to go to check things out.  We got all of the tests the professionals knew to give. And yet, still we don't know what took my son's hearing.  It still freaks me out a little to think his hearing was stolen and we don't know by what.

But now, he has an implant and that is going to help him hear again.  After the surgery was over, the surgeon came to talk to us and tell us how the surgery had gone before we saw our son.  The surgeon said that the surgery went really really well.  He also said if any surgery was going to retain any residual hearing, this would be the one.  We were praying for that.  Our audiologist will test in the next few months to see what hearing has been retained.

When we went into see our boy, he was still asleep after surgery.  We sat by his bedside so that we would be there when he woke up.  I just love these kids and want them to see me when they first come out of surgery.  They always look a little disoriented like they are trying to catch their bearings, which is totally to be expected.  Naturally, we took pictures, because we parents like to document these momentous occasions in our children's lives.

Nurse Chance

Chance was so cute helping out his brother.  He kept a good eye on his little bro, and when the nurse came in and suggested that his little bro try to eat something, Chance took the lead and wanted to help him with his first food after surgery.  Chance also was the one who jumped up and wanted to help his brother when he had to use the restroom the first time after surgery. Chance was a personal nurse on surgery day.

I think it was interesting for Chance to see the implant surgery from the other side.  He got to be in on the excitement and anticipation on the waiting side rather than the receiving side.  And Chance is SO excited that his brother got an implant.

Leaving the hospital after surgery being pushed out in a wheelchair by a nurse.

We left the hospital with a mummy wrap on the patient's head which is standard with an implant surgery.

We left for home later than we had anticipated.  The surgery got done later than we had originally thought and then we were waiting for our little son to come out of anesthetic and stay awake for a bit.  We started home in the dark and in rush hour traffic, but all was well.  Our son was peaceful with no indication of any pain whatsoever and it was kind of pretty watching the lights in the dark with a touch of snow.

We were very blessed as members of our church group had kept tabs on us during the day, praying for us and provided dinner for our family for the night of the surgery and the next night as well.  Homemade delicious meals were dropped off at our house so we didn't have to worry about cooking dinner for the other kids when we got home.  The meals were delicious and we enjoyed them immensely.

When we got home, our little son just continued to go in and out of sleep.  When we went to bed, we were concerned because there had been no pain medication given since surgery and we were afraid that he would wake up in a lot of pain.  So we woke him up and gave him some pain medication.

Our son never actually asked for pain medication after the surgery.

Not the next day, and not the next night.

We would ask him if he hurt and needed some medication and he said no.

We didn't want to push him into taking medication, but it did freak us his parents out a little.  We knew that the surgeon had literally drilled into his skull and to us, that meant there should be some pain involved. We of course, did not want to remind our young son that this had happened, but he did not seem phased by pain after the surgery.

He was a little trooper.