Home From Hospital :)

 Reuben before and after his op

 

Last Thursday Reuben went for his first 2 operations on his spine. He had an anterior release (the removal of 4 spinal discs through the chest) and then insertion of growing rods. We were on the ward at 7am and all the theatre teams who would be with him during the day came to see us to introduce themselves and say what they would be doing, I can't believe they all fit in theatre!
He went to theatre at 9.15am, happily jumped on the bed (didn't want to sit on my knee, he wanted to lie down all by himself on the jelly head rest!) and then Reuben took the anaesthetic mask put it to his nose and giggled himself off to sleep by himself, no drama or tears, he made all the staff smile as he giggled and talked a bit of gibberish while the anaesthetic gas took effect made him fall asleep. Big sister Esther was also there to see him before he went to sleep and then she went to school.
At 2pm the surgeon rang to say that the first operation had gone well and at 4.15 after lots more preparation work to monitor the spinal cord they were ready to start the second operation. At 6.30 the surgeons came to see us and they were very pleased everything had gone really well. Usually this operation is done when children are a bit older so at age 3, Reuben's bones were very small but we have a very skilled surgeon!
At 7pm we were allowed to go and see him in recovery, it was a bit of a shock to see him at first, because he had been face down for so long his eyes and face were swollen and puffy, he didn't look like Reuben at all and he was so covered in wires on each arm, leg, chest and neck that we could hardly see him for tubes, drains, monitors and drips. Overnight was a bit scary in high dependency, his monitors were beeping constantly as he had a very high heart rate and breathing rate, lots of different doctors had to come in throughout the night to change medications and adjust things and this continued for the next couple of days in HDU but things settled slowly and at 10.30pm Sunday night he was stable enough for the ward. By Monday morning he still couldn't sit up for very long because it was too painful and he was still attached to oxygen and drips but by the evening he had most things removed and felt a bit better. At this point we thought we wouldn't be going home until about Saturday because recovery was slow, but in the evening he decided he wanted to have a try at walking in his frame and managed a short walk to the door of the room. After a good night's sleep Reuben then decided he'd had enough of bed and wanted to hunt out a jigsaw so asked if he could go in his frame and go out, he was a determined boy on a mission and walked the full length of the corridor to the playroom to the complete shock of all the nurses! Just a day ago he couldn't move and now he was walking! I was very nervously walking behind ready to catch, he was a bit wobbly but he just wanted to do a jigsaw! After his little trip to the playroom he was exhausted and needed a sleep for a couple of hours. The physiotherapy team were very impressed when they saw him later and the spinal team were happy that the x-rays looked good, they checked his wounds and re-dressed them and then to our shock said he could go home later! He's at home now, on medication for pain relief every 3 hours, he's still sore and painful and can't walk without his frame but it's nice to be home to get better :) He has to go back on Friday for a casting for a brace to be made to support him for a few months while the bones fuse better to the screws and he'll have the stitches removed from the chest drain then. The difference is incredible, he is straight and tall and his rib rotation has disappeared! I'm not quite sure how they did that but the rib bulge at the side has completely gone! He'll be home for at least a month or so before he can go back to nursery and he has to take it easy, he's not allowed to play sports for 12 months or do things like jump on trampolines (his favourite thing!) but we are going to find lots of other activities a usually energetic 3 year old can do for when he's up and about!

So that's it! We're over the worst bit now and it's just one day at a time getting him up and on his feet getting our cheeky energetic little man back!