thanks, everyone. yes, i've had a bit of time off - mama & i have been out to eat someplace nice this week, and i'm sleeping fine. i'm reading a book of feminist essays - just a few pages each, take some concentrating but not too much, and have nothing to do with babies... oh, and i'm doing some counseling here at the hosp. my local dive buds say we're going out saturday night, and that will be great. thanks so much for caring (& keeping the pink tunnel well-visited, jean!
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jameson has been looking pretty good the last few days. i was a bit surprised that they didn't do his surgery yesterday, but i think they felt that as long as his plastic patch was holding up as well as it was, they would give him every opportunity for his swelling to go down. and it did, at least where you could see it. his hands, face, feet, and genitals were much less swollen, though his tummy was still big.
so he went for his surgery this morning. he was gone about 1 1/2 hours. the doc said he didn't have any signs of infection from looking at the inside of his abdomen. he's still not sure that the middle part of his colon will be saveable, but he put in a drain so it could put out any mucus it made. his ostomy is draining, which is a good sign. they took out the plastic 'tent' and put in a plastic patch, which is basically an artificial scab. it will slowly get skin growing under it and then fall off after a while, like a real scab. it will likely look pretty ugly & he'll have a hernia there, but all that can be repaired when they put his bowel back together in 6-8 weeks. the surgeon said things all look very good, except that he's not sure about that middle part of colon. however, even if it's gone, jameson should have normal bowel function with what's left, perhaps a bit more urgency to 'i gotta go' and likely softer stools, but shouldn't have any problem getting nutrition from his food or being able to potty train & hold his bowels or anything. so no adult diapers unless he decides not to go for a pee valve.
his lungs have been doing really well. they're likely to have a bit of setback as he recovers from this surgery (from the extra fluid), but hopefully minor. the next steps (in a week or two) are likely to be coming off the ventilator and seeing about some tube feedings. it is *possible* that he'll go home before his final tummy repair, if everything else is just going perfect, but more likely that he'll be in longer than the 'about the time he was due' timeframe. i'm trying to not get hung up on stuff that far away & stay more in the present.
so overall, he's doing good. the docs are very optimistic for his pretty much total recovery though of course bad stuff is always possible. but, hey, he has a double chin now! he's not scrawny anymore!
