After the surgery

I am totally amazed! I have not been phased out at all! I took everything in stride today – almost to the point of being professional about it! Around 11:45 am we were finally allowed to see Jonathan. He was in the recovery room. About 30 minutes before we met with the (main) surgeon and he gave us a run down of how the operation went. He said that the surgery went perfect - and included the thumbs up sign (smile). He said that there wasn’t any blood lose, i.e. no excessive bleeding, etc… and that they removed all the tumor. They removed one of his adrenal glands and the liver and kidney were fine (not invaded by tumor). They also removed some infected lymph nodes but left some calcified lymph nodes that were around the aorta (main blood vessels).

When we went in to see Jonathan and I noticed he was sleeping – my first reaction was to see what was done to my little boy’s body. I raised up the sheet / blanket that was covering him and there I saw an incision that started from the middle of his stomach and went to the right of his stomach all the way to his side and then up his side to just below his armpit. There was also a tube coming out of his chest – I would estimate about ¼” in size.

Later on, when I was asking my ‘million and one questions’ I found out that the surgical team also had to crack two of Jonathan’s ribs. The thing that pissed me off about the fact that they had to crack two of his ribs was that I had to ask that question! No one came out and told me that this was a consequence of the operation. The more I think about it – the more I’m starting to suspect that it wasn’t necessary or something (maybe the readers of this blog with a medical background could e-mail me on their thoughts about this part of the operation)?

I probably spent the first hour trying to convince the pain management team that the dosage of pain medicine was too low. It got to the point where the conversation was getting animated (I was still being polite) and I finally decided to rest my case. I’ve come to realize it makes no sense arguing with nurses and some medical staff because they feel (some) parents don’t have a clue about what they are talking about. I even suggested to the pain management team to pull up his old charts and verify the information and assumptions I was making – but I think records management went too slowly and brought up the wrong records in the end.

So, 10 hours later, and Jonathan’s pain medicine is very close to the levels I was suggesting all along for them to use! What can I say! Maybe I should be a doctor (smile)! I think I prefer to be an engineer – I don’t think I can manage having to deal with all those parents and their issues. In my field – I have alternative methods for not interacting with a customer that I may not have as a doctor (smile).

So the plan is for Jonathan to heal. He wakes up every hour or so and whimpers about being in pain – and I push a button that gives him an extra dose of pain medicine. He also gets a constant supply of pain medicine but there is a button connected to the machine in case he needs more. I must say that his pain management is under much better control now and I’m more relaxed. I’m really glad that his surgery went without any complications and I’m all geared towards Jonathan healing and getting better. I look forward to meeting our primary oncologist later in the week – where I’ll have a million more questions to ask – because if I didn’t have a million questions – my name wouldn’t be Walter Seepersad!