Friday .... Day of Surgery....

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Okay ...  so I thought long and hard about what to pack...  I knew we'd be there at least 2 to 3 days...  but packed for longer - just incase.   My suitcase, his bag of activities (Rex) Backpack with stuff to take in with him to the surgery (Angry Birds) behind that is the Mario dufflebag .. his suitcase, which PJ pants and such.  And our bathroom bag.  Then the big shopping bag has blankets and pillows.

Nathan and I both slept on the way there.  We left really early so that we could be sure if we got stuck in traffic, we could still get there and ended up being an hour early.  Better an hour early then stuck in traffic...

He was trying to pretend not to be there.

Mommy and Nathan being silly ...

 Playing on the tablet ...  then they called us back, did his temp and all that stuff.  

 He happened to see the DR. Pepper in my bag, whoops!  The last pic is his reaction when I explained he couldn't have it :(

All the pre-surgery rooms have these really cool glass art pieces on them...

NOT NOT NOT NOT ... I repeat ... NOT happy about being in a gown.  He knows what that means.

So .... we were suppose to get there at 9:15am.  We got called back at 9:15am.  His surgery was suppose to start - I'm assuming, around 10am.   That's about when they came in and told us that the case ahead of us was taking a lot longer than expected and there was going to be a delay.

So trying to entertain the minion begins.  

11am comes and goes...... no word.   But Daddy and Nathan were comparing hands....... thought it was so cute.

So 11:30-ish I got up and hunted down one of the nurses that had been in the room, and asked her about how much longer.  Nathan was DESPERATELY hungry .. every couple minutes he was desperately signing to eat ...  and we'd have to explain to him that he couldn't yet.  It became extremely hard to tell him we couldn't feed him and no he couldn't even have something to drink.

Lights are magical with Nathan though, and thank goodness for this thing.....

Finally at about 12:15 ... the doctors came filing in doing all the preparations prior to surgery, asked if one of us wanted to take him back to make the transition easier. Dad went back cuz if I had, I would have been a blubbering mess and only stressed him out more.  

So about 12:30pm ...  the surgery started.   It was only suppose to take between 2 and 3 hours.  Doc thought closer to 2.  So we had our handy dandy beeper that would go off when he was done.

 We went to eat, put stuff in the car we didn't need anymore, walk around...  2 hours pass, then two and a half...  then 3....   I'm getting nervous.  Dennis says "Let's go get a snack.  That will surely tempt them to be done and page us."  So we go up and get a snack.  Do they beep us?  Nope.  I even told Dennis how wrong he was....  so then we went to meander around the gift shop, and low and behold, 3 and a half hours later, we finally get beeped.  So we rushed downstairs and got there just as the doctor was getting out to the desk.  

We went back in a room and he told us everything went great.  That they took the piece of the bottom lip to create a strong structure around the urethra ...  that they were able to save the right testicle (it was up by his hip) ...  he said that they got it down and tethered it (it's been brought down twice before) and that although it didn't look absolutely normal, it wasn't dead ...  it was about half the size of the other one - and we'd have to keep an eye on it.

We didn't get a good look at everything until later... but by the time we saw it, there was horrible swelling and bruising.  There was a blue catheter coming out of his penis, which they did manage to get the top of the urethra to the tip of his penis (yay!) so hopefully no more surgeries to try to do this (this was his third) ...   this cath was to help support things as they heal .. and so they heal properly.  He also had a tube coming out of his belly - from his bladder, to drain urine while things are healing.

His penis was swollen to three times it's normal size, and so was (is) his right testicle.  The whole area is just a grossly dark color of purple.

He's wearing double diapers.  The one closest to his skin is to help protect his little manhood... and the catheters are both on the outside of that diaper, for drainage.  And this picture was actually taken on Saturday.

So we were told about a half hour to an hour we'd get his room number.  A little over an hour later .. I went up to the desk and asked if they had gotten his room number yet, she said she tried to page us .. whoops...  I blame Dennis.   So we got the room number, got up there, told it would be a little bit longer, he was still in recovery.

So we went - ate dinner ....  and got in the car, drove around to the hospital side of things, and started to drag stuff up.   After two hours in recovery - total - he finally got wheeled in.

So ...  he was (as to be expected) super tired when he got out of surgery.

Nathan got super upset every time Dennis was going to leave, so he couldn't bare to leave him.  We didn't plan on that though...  but it all worked out.