Kieran's Big Adventure

On Monday April 12th, we headed to Tripler Army Medical Center dark and early.  As opposed to bright and early of course-it was still dark when we left.  We got Kieran checked into the Surgical Admissions Center at 6am.  Kieran had his vitals taken, we answered a few more questions, met with one of the ortho docs and got his smashing hospital jammies for him.

We waited around in the pediatric waiting room for awhile with him until they were ready to bring him back.  He had fun playing with the toys while waiting-poor kid was completely unaware of what was coming up.  We never explained anything to him about it-which looking back, probably wasn't the best idea, but really, how do you explain surgery to a 19 month old?

Before surgery-and the doctors initials on the body part for surgery.  I thought it was a little funny.  Kieran was disturbed by the marker on his thumb.

After waiting for a bit, they collected us and a bunch of other patients and took us back to the pre-op room.  What was initially a sleepy, quiet room with just a few patients in it quickly became a buzzing, busy place as nurses and anesthetists rushed about getting their patients ready.

We talked to Kieran's anesthesiologist for a bit about what his plan for Kieran was.  Since Kieran is so young, he did not get an IV started until after he had already gone under with gas.  Kieran seemed to like his anesthesiologist, even letting him hold him while we were still there!  Kieran initially got gas anesthesia and then IV anesthesia.  The plan was to just place a tube that would sit at the back of his throat-but we were also told that if they felt an endotrach tube was necessary, they'd place one.  I honestly don't know if they ended up doing that or not.

The attending doctor also stopped in to see us while in pre-op.  He told us that although he initially didn't plan on it, he was definitely going to do a pin in the thumb and cast Kieran's hand-and then keep us in Hawaii until the cast was ready to be removed.  Oh, and the ENT also stopped by to reconfirm the tubes and answer any other questions.

(As a side note, Kieran's ortho doctor both looks and sounds like Owen Wilson, so I have a hard time not laughing when I see him-I always think of Owen Wilson's character from Meet the Parents.)

Shortly after that, they took Kieran back to the OR and we went to the waiting room.  We waited for what seemed like forever-I read almost an entire Janet Evanovich book.  We got a call in the waiting room after we'd been in there for about 30-40 minutes-they had finished with tubes and had been working on his thumb for about 20 minutes, with about 1 1/2 hours left to go.

 After he was done, I went back to the recovery room to hold him while he woke up from the anesthesia.  He did really well-not too much crying or thrashing about.  He was very, very sleepy.  The few times he roused himself, it was to ask to have his cast off.  He didn't like it at all.

We moved up into the peds ward, so Kieran could stay overnight to be monitored.  He finally woke up around 2 or so-and had some food, some water and then, went to the playroom!  He kept asking to have the cast off, but seemed to play around it well enough.  He was pretty doped up on Tylenol with codeine and Motrin.

The rest of the evening went ok.  Kieran had to have another dose of IV antibiotics, which he did not like at all.  He was not happy when they hooked the IV back up to his port.  He played again after that, gobbled down dinner, and then settled into the crib and luckily, slept most of the night-he even mostly slept through his last dose of IV antibiotics.

We got discharged from the hospital around 830 the next morning and Kieran has been doing great ever since!  Running around, playing, overall, not acting like he just had a body part removed!  I will continue to post more pictures of him (and us) in Hawaii.