Surgery over!!

I had been dreading yesterday for a while. I wasn't actually worried about the procedure, but the next few days of recovery. James was finally feeling so good, weight 22 lbs 3 oz, charming everyone on our floor. Then we sort of pulled the rug out from under him. Obviously he won't remember this eventually, but it's hard to see your little one in pain (my parents are experts on this!).
We had a little scare on Sunday night (apart from Tom's ill-timed food poisoning). A doctor rushed in after seeing his morning labs. Apparently his blood glucose was very low. Okay, it actually wasn't, and after sticking him twice, they agreed it was a mistake. Still, better safe than sorry. At that time, his pre-surgical labs were done and they found him anemic with low hemoglobin. This immediately started discussions of blood transfusions (yikes.) and possible reasons. Finally, in daylight, the voice of reason showed up in the form of Dr. Borowitz (GI doc). I'm really starting to love this guy. See, there are lots of benefits of so many doctors looking at James, but a downside is that they all have different labs they want taken. Every night a nurse would flush his central line, draw out tainted blood, and then draw a lab sample. Dr. Borowitz looked at this and said that they were taking way too much blood out of the poor kid, when he has likely been anemic for a long time. So everyone took a deep breath and started him on iron. The surgeon was not worried about his bloodwork either, so we moved right ahead. It is very important, I think, to have a doctor that starts with the simplist explanation and then moves forward. They're usually right.
So the g-tube was placed yesterday at about 1 pm. James was a very sad little boy coming out of it. We had a rough night. His airway was irritated from the breathing tube and he was taking shallow breaths cause his tummy hurt. Nothing unusual in a case like this though. So a wonderful respiratory nurse came in and gave him a breathing treatment which he loved and started a humidifier in the room (seriously, we've been dyin here in the hospital air---I didn't know there was a way to hook one from the wall or I would have asked for this a looooong time ago). His heart rate is still a bit high probably from pain and also from anemia. But we've been giving him some meds and he is much happier. He woke up this morning with a smile, but then he tried to sit up. Smile came back though, so all in all he is in good spirits and looks really good. It is still the plan to stay until we are all confident of his oral eating and g-tube regiment so we can remove the central line. Hoping it doesn't take too long, but I am assuming another 10 days or so. Who knows, he might be so hungry after all this he might surprise us all!

Thanks everyone for continuing thoughts and prayers. This is one tough kid!!