The Surgery
We arrived at JPCH at the requested time of 11 am for check
in. Levi had been fasting (from both
food and water) since 8 pm the night before, so he was slightly hungry and
thirsty but was easily distracted by some card games and video games.
We waited and waited for information until finally being told
that his surgery wasn’t actually scheduled until 2 pm. It was a bit discouraging, but we were
prepared to wait, so we broke out more games.
By around 1:00 Levi was incredibly hungry and we were all
eager to get the show on the road! At
1:30, we were brought into a room (the same room that he would recover in after
his surgery), and waited for the surgical team to prep the surgical suite.
Through all of this, Levi was incredibly calm and composed. He continually impresses me with his strength in the face of uncertainty and fear. He is one strong, brave kid.
Shortly before 3, we met with the surgeon, the anesthesiologist
and the nurse. They answered all of our
questions, and brought us into the holding area where parents can say goodbye
to their children before being rolled into the suite itself. The surgeon said the surgery would take about
2 hours, and gave us all the final details of the surgery itself. (We had learned all this information prior to
this day, but for consent purposes, he had to repeat the information). I signed consent, we prayed with Levi, and gave
him a big hug. Ryan and I were brought back to the family waiting room, and Levi
was brought into the surgical suite.
Ryan and I spent some time in prayer, then settled in to wait for the surgeon to come find us and give us a report.
At 4:20, the surgeon came smiling into the family waiting
room. He was finished early and said
that everything went incredibly smoothly.
He was very happy with how it all came together, which was so good to
hear!
We waited a little while for Levi to wake up from the anesthetic,
then the nurse came to bring us into the recovery room. Levi was pretty groggy, and a bit shaky but
he came out of the anesthetic without any major complications.
We were brought up onto the Pediatric ward, where there was
some confusion as to what room he would need to be placed in. The nurses on recovery did not realize that
when a patient is sent up to the Peds ward with a PCA pump (patient-controlled
analgesic pump) that the patient needs to be in an Observation room. We got that figured out, and got Levi settled
into his room. He almost immediately
relaxed into a nap, and rested for a good chunk of time.
This allowed Ryan and I time to get our things organized in
his room and prepare ourselves for the next stage of the process, which was recovery!
I will follow up this blog post with several others about this experience, including details about the procedure itself, our hospital stay and the recovery process at home. Some of this information may not be of interest to the general public, but I hope to provide a resource for families who may go through this same experience in the future. There are plenty of informational websites about the details of the procedure, but I found very little information about the process and recovery from people who had actually experienced it. I hope that writing our experience out will be helpful to those searching for information!
Thanks for reading!
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