Aleck’s surgery went really well, way better than we expected and we were home and nursing by 11:30AM. It’s so funny because usually I feel with doctor’s and hospitals everything takes at least an hour to an hour and a half longer than they tell you. So by the time I pumped milk in their lactation rooms, ate some breakfast, went to the ladies room and refilled my water bottle it was time to go see him in recovery. The recovery room was this huge room with lots of booths or stations, and the one sound we could hear even before they opened the doors was Aleck’s distinctive wail. He was thrashing all wrapped up in warm blankets with his jiffy pop hat on. The nurse looked a little overwhelmed and relieved when she handed him to me. Craig and I have been joking since he was born that “You’re not the boss of me now”, since we would try to burp him in the NICU while holding his head in position and he would turn his head back and forth as if already asserting his independent spirit. Well, we made that joke to each other, the nurse heard and said, “Oh, he’s definitely the boss of you,” boy are we in trouble with this little fellow already.
Despite not being fed since 2:15am, he was in surprisingly good spirits at 7:00AM, dressed in his hospital gown and ready to go. The doctors have to initial where the surgery is being done, so even after a bath there is still a VS with an arrow at the top of his right thigh. While waiting for our doctor to greet us we listened to the other kids screaming and crying from the other rooms around us. At one point it was like a domino effect, one kid cried, then another, then another until there were 3 or 4 kids crying at the same time, as if they were sharing in each other’s pain or fear. Meanwhile, the nurses and doctors ran around, doing what they needed to do, not even flinching when the next patient let out a yelp. I couldn’t help but think how being a nurse or doctor at Children’s, at a place where your patients are so young they don’t really understand what’s going on and they react so extremely since they don’t have that understanding, there’s got to be a special place in the afterlife for people like this. These people, who have to work through the screams, through the crocodile tears in order to help these kids, they are a very special breed.
At home Aleck was a little more cantankerous than usual, understandably, and at one point decided that the only place he would be comfortable was asleep on my boob. So I lay in bed with him resting on me for 2 and a half hours until he decided he was hungry again. If I even tried to pull down my shirt because I was cold he would start to wail like a mad man, flailing that leg of self-expression all over the place, making sure I knew exactly how he felt. We noticed a little blood had seeped through his cast when I went to change his diaper, blood that wasn’t there when we were at the hospital. I had Craig take a picture of the spot with his phone and we emailed it to our doctor. Modern technology is amazing. She called back having looked at the picture and assured us it was a harmless amount of blood that can happen during this type of surgery. We were to monitor it and if it didn’t get worse and he wasn’t running a fever there was nothing to worry about. He went to sleep around 9:30pm and didn’t make a peep until 2:30am. Sadie was the one to hear him stir, running into the hallway and taking her station at the front door so she can watch over both bedrooms. After more medicine and a feed, Sadie and I cuddled on the couch while I expressed any leftover milk. The house was so peaceful, and I felt a moment of that peace inside of me.
Last night Craig and I looked at the island in our kitchen, covered in medicine jars, pill jars, and pages of instructions for our patients. He commented that the place looks like a bunch of 80 year olds live there. The amount of pain medication alone could tank a sumo wrestler, and the baby medicine droppers are scattered about like confetti. Sadie’s meds dominate the area, and my heart breaks when I give them to her. In the last couple of days her mouth has swollen up huge, ever since the injection of her first treatment for her cancer. Now, the vet didn’t say that this was a cure in any way, it’s already in her lungs, but their studies show that 40% of dogs who get the melanoma vaccine live for another 300 days, and I mean 300 good days, not 300 you have to carry them up the stairs days. Today she was dripping a little blood from the side of her mouth and seemed more lethargic than usual, though her dog walked claimed that she couldn’t get Sadie to come home from their walk in the snow. I panicked, called the oncologist and her vet, and since my mom was already hanging out with Aleck, ran her over to her vet this evening. The oncologist had told us that we had to look out for signs of her getting worse, and I had to know if this was a sign.
As I’m driving there my mom is texting me frantically, don’t do anything rash, don’t do anything drastic. I calmly told myself I’m just going there to figure out if this is the tumor growing more or just swelling, and that there was no way I was going to put her down then and there. Well, our vet visit turned into a therapy session as my vet told me about how she had to put down her dog last week. And this week, she diagnosed her cat with cancer and has had to hand feed her each meal. She’s got a 5 month old baby at home, and me with my 3 month old, we definitely bonded. I rehashed with her everything we’ve been through over the last two years, and also what it was like when my parents put down our dog Murry, a truly traumatic experience. Then we high-fived each other for both of us crashing our cars during the X-Mas season. It felt really good to talk to her, being so empathetic to what we are going through right now, not at all cold and clinical, which is what I need right now, someone to hold my hand and to help me see clearly when it’s time to throw in the towel. Tonight wasn’t the time. There is a chance that the swelling is because of her first treatment and it’s her body’s way of fighting the infection. We shall see.
For now, enjoy this link to a video I shot of Craig giving Aleck his pre-surgery pep talk:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150474434547218