For pre-op day details from yesterday, check out Tom’s blog post below or at http://blog.thomascsherman.com/
Yesterday was a big day. We had Julian’s preop appointment where he was analyzed to ensure he was healthy and ready for his surgery. We started out at 7:30am in admitting and then moved up to a small office where a coordination team was prepped and ready to get things moving. I thought that like most doctor’s visits we would spend the majority of the time sitting around, but it was a whirlwind trip through the hospital.
We started by visiting radiology for a chest x-ray. I had to hold Julian’s arms up against his head and keep him very still for the x-rays. He cried a bit because it was so uncomfortable. Fortunately moments later he was his happy usual self.
Next he was brought to an exam room for vitals, height and weight. Julian had just finished a bottle so he puttered off to sleep and didn’t wake up through the entire procedure. He must have been having some pretty cool dreams. His blood oxygenation sat at a very good 99% and his blood pressure and temperature were normal. He weighed in at 14lbs and 5oz and was 26in long at seven months old. He is still a cute little button! Next up was the squid which consisted of a dozen or so wires with little stickies on the end. Unfortunately I don’t have pictures or videos of this because Gretchen had left to get some breakfast and coffee. By the time the squid was all stuck to him his little torso was nearly covered in the things.
Next we headed down to what would be the worst part of the day. Blood analysis. The last time we took Julian down to have his blood drawn he screamed bloody murder while Gretchen and I kept him pinned to the table so the phlebotomist could work. I had never seen him cry so hard or so loud in his entire life. Apparently dear old dad’s habits of rough housing with Julian have paid off though, because this time he was like a UFC fighter. The needle went in and squiggled around looking for a vein, but Julian manned up and hardly let out a peep. I was so proud of him.
From there we headed out to have a tour of the ICU and postop recuperating areas. The ICU was pretty intense. The monitoring equipment was enormous and took up three quarters of the room. Off by a window a thin and narrow mattress was where was one of us parents could sleep. For the other parent there is a family suite in another building with showering facilities and beds. After ICU he will go to a shared room in another wing of the hospital. I don’t plan on leaving the hospital for the next week so I am going to get very familiar with Children’s.
After a short lunch break (the food is decent, the selection is good and the price is great by the way) we headed back to a waiting room where we met with a nurse practitioner, anesthesiologist and a surgeon (but not our surgeron). The nurse practitioner went over Julian’s history and we could ask her questions about what the following day would be like. The surgeon went over the details of the surgery which I will cover in more detail in my next post. The anesthesiologist went over how Julian had strict food intake requirements until the next day and things like that.
We still weren’t done yet! We met with two nurses and chose to opt in for two studies. The first was strictly a monitoring study called TXA. The second was a study on whether treating blood sugar levels through insulin injection immediately post-surgery prevents infection. A similar study in adults found this to be true. They expect this to also be true for babies, but at the worst neither helpful nor hurtful.
Unfortunately we were unable to meet with Julian’s surgeon, Dr. Sitaram Emani, because he had an unexpected surgery and was tied up in it. My only thought after hearing that was I hoped he had enough time to get home and get some rest. I don’t want our surgeon to be overtired from a long day of work and then have to get up the next morning and do two more.
