Surgery #2

Roan had surgery on Friday. If you're surprised by this, well, we were too. We knew he needed it, and went to the doctor on Wednesday planning to schedule something for January, but they had a last minute opening on Friday, and we took it.

Roan was born with an undescended testicle. Which isn't so unusual - a lot of times they come down on their own, in their own time. When it hadn't gone anywhere by three months we went to see a pediatric urologist. She said if it didn't come down by six months, it would probably stay put. So we waited. We egged it on. But at six months, the testicle hadn't budged. It remained pretty high up, hanging out in the vicinity of Roan's abdomen, which is not an ideal environment for a testicle.

Fast forward to Wednesday at the urologist's office (Roan is ten months old). We were encouraged to hear that the testicle had relocated. It had moved down (great news!), but it had taken a wrong turn and was headed for Roan's leg (terrible news).

It was lost.

You can imagine how hard it was for me not to ask a barrage of really stupid questions. Would the testicle ever find its way, or was it, like the ancient hero Odysseus, cursed to wander? Could it move back up, or only laterally and down (like Tetris)? Once it was surgically placed in the scrotum, was there any guarantee it would finally settle down and stay put?

There was no time for questions. We had to go to the lab for blood work right away. It's really hard to take blood from a baby, because their arms are so fat, and they have tiny baby veins. Roan was asleep when they called us, and the nurse thought that maybe he'd just sleep through it. Right. They had to dig around a bit to find the vein, and Roan still has a bright blue bruise.

Friday morning we woke up and tried to act normal, but Roan sensed something was amiss. We couldn't give him breakfast; he looked longingly up at the counter top, where the Cheerios come from. Even so, he was good natured. We met with the nurses and an anaesthesiologist, and Roan charmed them all. In addition to general anaesthesia, Roan received a caudal block, which is basically an epidural. The surgery lasted close to two hours, and having gone through this once before, it was easier for me this time around. I didn't watch him go under this time - the hospital was strict about only allowing one parent in the operating room, and that was Jay.

When they brought us into recovery Roan was fast asleep on one of the nurses, who was reluctant to hand him over. He smelled wrong, like hospital, but it was wonderful to hold him and feel him snore. When he woke up he kept trying to stand in my lap, but his legs were too weak from the caudal, so he just flopped around, which was sad, but also a little funny. Jay and I alternated between giggling and tearing up.

There's something elemental about holding your child after surgery, watching him fight his way up through the fog of anaesthesia and realize he's back in the world. It's like when I first held him after he was born. There's this profound relief that he's okay, and even a bit of amazement that he's alive and exists at all. For a moment, it's like you are discovering each other all over again. And then he's back to his old tricks.

This weekend was rough, but here are some photos to assure you that the Robot is back in form:

Recovery

Day 3:Day 4:

On the third day after surgery, Roan still looked like he'd joined Baby Fight Club. But today, the fourth day, the swelling is almost gone, and the bruising is starting to fade. His eyes look almost symmetrical in this photo.

Throughout this whole process Roan has been a champion baby. Once he got over the anaesthesia, he's been just as happy and as playful as ever. He doesn't seem to bothered or traumatized. Jay and I, however, are traumatized. We're giving him an oral antibiotic three times a day, which is pretty nasty despite the cherry flavoring, and Baby Tylenol for soreness and pain. We are icing his eye each time we feed him, and applying a topical antibiotic cream afterward. We are attempting to keep socks on his hands. The hardest part is keeping him from rubbing and scratching his eye - he can tell something is different about it, and wants desperately to check it out / poke it out. Because of this, everything was initially a two person job - someone to do whatever needed doing (diaper change, burping, giving medicine, whatever), and someone to make sure Ro didn't put his fist in his eye. He also seemed to be bent on jamming all his toys into his eye. Once, I even saw him try to kick himself in the eye. Guess he doesn't want to lose his street cred.

My mom flew in the day before the surgery, and we leaned hard on her. Having a third person to split baby time and share the night shifts made it bearable. She also made chicken salad sandwiches when we were starving and too tired to order delivery, and did a breathtaking amount of laundry. Even now, as a grown woman and a mother myself, my mom has the power to swoop into my life, like a magic fairy or something, and make everything okay. I'm not sure what that says about the kind of person I am, that I still need this kind of fix - maybe nothing. But it says a lot about the kind of person my mom is.

Jay's parents flew in a day later, and having three grandparents around has been heavenly. My mom's now flown home, so they've taken the weekend shift. Jay and I stepped out for a beer the other night, to congratulate ourselves on what a badass our son is, and maybe, just for a fleeting second, pretend that we were just another childless couple getting our drink on at 4PM.

Surgery

On Wednesday Roan had surgery to remove a dermoid cyst above his right eye (you can see it clearly in this photo). Dermoid cysts are made up of hair, nail and teeth cells, and sometimes pockets of blood, fat, bone, and cartilage. All this stuff was on it's way to wherever it was supposed to go, and just got stuck by Ro's right eye instead, probably when he was in utero. We could have left it alone, but it was getting bigger, and the danger is that it will rupture, spreading these cells all over his face. Then he'd have to be on antibiotics for the rest of his life, to suppress infection, and to suppress the teeth, nails, and hair trying to grow on his forehead, cheeks, chin, etc. So yeah, we opted for the surgery.

Since he went under general anaesthesia, Roan couldn't eat for four hours before surgery. Only one parent could accompany him into the O.R., and we decided it would be Jay. They gave him this astronaut suit to put on, complete with shoe covers and shower cap, and I couldn't help but notice that of the half dozen other couples in the waiting room, he was the only dad going in. Was I really the only mom who didn't want to watch? When we took Ro down to the O.R., the nurses seemed surprised that Jay was wearing the astronaut suit instead of me - they started to tell me I couldn't go any further, but instead grabbed an extra suit for me. This made me feel even worse: like I was the only mom in the history of the hospital not to accompany her child into surgery. I'm glad I went, because the surgeon ended up being 45 minutes late, and it took a lot of effort to keep Roan from realizing how hungry he was. We passed the time by admiring the other Robot in the room - a 1.6 million dollar robot used for urinary procedures.

It was awful watching Roan go under. They put a mask over his mouth and nose, and he fought and fought and little by little the fight just died out in him, and the light went out of his eyes. I couldn't help it - I really wanted him to win this fight. I had a brief daydream where he knocked the mask out of the nurse's grip, rolled over into my arms, and we burst through the doors and escaped into the sun. Then I had another daydream where the nurse said, "I'm sorry, but your son is just too strong for anaesthesia. You can go home now." In reality, I gave him a kiss goodbye and started crying.

An hour and a half later they wheeled him into recovery, and I've never been so happy to see my baby crying inconsolably. He was so upset and confused that despite his hunger it took him three tries to latch on and start sucking. They monitored him for half an hour, then sent us home.

Here he is on Day 1:

Day 2:

What a shiner. The swelling should continue for one more day, and then we should start to see improvement. He's already scratched off his bandages, as if to emphasize the point that he is not a baby you'd want to meet in a dark alley. More recovery photos to come...