Wow, I haven't updated in a few weeks. I'm so sorry!
I've been pretty busy trying to find my balance again. It seems like I spend a lot of time doing just that, but then the past three years have been admittedly crazy. Although I'm more stable now (emotionally at least) than I ever have been before, there have been sea changes in my life since 2007 and the advent of Matteo. One major one was when I quit City Park and got laid off from the shop, and began my eleven-month run as a stay-home mom (and more or less a miserable failure at it). And then, finally, I went back to work.
I'm cooking. Again. Finally. I had my first day of work at the Sage (part of the Odawa Casino Resort) on July 14'th. I'm full-time, but seasonal, which means there's a strong chance I'll be laid off in September, unless they decide to figure out a way to keep me. However, with any luck, I can either transfer to a different job within the company, and return to the Sage next spring, or else accept the lay-off and return next spring.
I love my job. It's been a while since I could say that whole-heartedly. I'm the gar-mo (garde-manger), which basically means I do salads, some apps, and desserts when I have the time. Here's our menu. The grilled pizza is my personal favorite, sans olives.
I can't say enough good things about working there. It's just as much pressure as working the line at City Park, but pressure of a different sort. City Park is great at what they do, don't get me wrong, but the Sage is a whole different thing. City Park is far more casual than the Sage, for one thing. Sage is gourmet. Sage is fancy plating, frisee with charred tomato vinaigrette, beef so tender that you can literally fork-cut it, supremed oranges to accompany the sauteed crab cakes...anyway..... So there's more pressure to make the plates look good. There's the pressure of being the new kid, of course. And the fact that there's a security camera blatantly jutting from the ceiling right in front of my station. Whether it's focused on me or not, I have no way of knowing (it's in a dark glass dome). Not that I'm camera-shy, lol, I just pretend I'm doing a demo on Food TV half the time. The other half of the time, I forget it's there.
My co-workers are pretty cool too.
I've already dropped a few pounds - to get to the employee doors for the kitchen, I have to basically walk across the entire casino, then up three flights of stairs. The employee bathroom is at the foot of those stairs. So, lots of exercise there. That's a good thing though, I was getting pudgy again.
I've learned so much already too in the two weeks I've been there. Like, how to supreme an orange, how to clean a head of frisee, the fact that pumpkin seeds are a far superior add-in to brittle than peanuts or almonds, what a banana financier is, and a new technique for slicing tomatoes. The fact that I'm getting to fill in some of the gaps in my culinary knowledge is priceless to me. And the Sage will look great on my resume.
In other news....
I had to get a new phone and number the other day. AT&T is a company comprised of brigands and douchebags. So I switched over to Boost Mobile. My phone's a little odd, but I'm so glad Jeremy got it for me. I was really hating not being able to text anyone. It's a Motorola Clutch. My only problem with it is the early '90's style graphics and display, and the fact that it doesn't deliver about 25% of my incoming text messages. But, now that I'm with Boost, I'll be able to get either the Motorola i1 (Android phone) or a Blackberry Curve once we're caught up on bills. I'm torn between the two. I'd love to try out the Android technology, but I've heard some great things about Crackberries too, so we'll see.
The kids are finally starting to adjust to Mommy working again. Matthew gets a big kick out of going to pick up Diddy on the days he babysits. He'll get himself 3/4 dressed (I have to help him get his shirt over his head sometimes, and occasionally his pull-up will get snagged in his waistband), then grab my wrist, lead me to the door, and say "Trip? Go? Car? Dribing? Get Diddys?" I love it. I also am so happy that Diddy's been babysitting for me. For one thing, day care is prohibitively expensive. For another, I don't really trust daycares. I trust Diddy. He's good with the boys, and they love him. Plus he isn't going to freak out if they decide to strip down to their pull-ups, or if I haven't had a chance to run the vacuum. I'm so lucky to have him.
I still have to try to figure out a balance between work and housework. Hopefully, now that I'm used to going to work again, I'll be able to do that this week. I do the majority of the cleaning around here, and as much of a wimp as it makes me sound, the 40+ hours a week at the Sage, plus all those damn stairs, has had me fairly wiped out. I think I'm going to try to draw myself up a chore chart - a few things a day - and try to do that. I miss how clean my place on Clarion was. Of course, that was before I had two kids under the age of 4, but still. Fingers crossed I can find that balance, lol.
Man, it feels so good to be making money again!
That's all I've got for tonight. I'll try to get a picture of myself in my work uniform tomorrow, and I'll post it.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
Updates
Jonah's healing nicely.
We're past the Neosporin-on-a-gauze-pad phase. We ended up picking up a tube of the Neosporin plus pain relief. That stuff is amazing. If I get this job at the casino, I'm picking up a tube to keep in my knife roll for minor burns. Now we're into the Vaseline-on-a-gauze-pad phase, for the next couple of days.
It doesn't seem to be causing Jonah much pain, except for when he's running and does the splits on accident, or right around bedtime when he's been active all day. Nothing a dose of Tylenol can't fix. It looks to be healing up quite well too. The stitches are dissolving, and most of the redness is gone. His peep doesn't have the "collar" on it that every other circumcised penis that I've seen has, but that's just a cosmetic thing, and perhaps it'll form. If not, I don't really care. The important thing is that it's been mended.
I haven't heard from the casino yet, but it's a holiday weekend. Hopefully I'll know by Wednesday.
I'm still without a street-legal vehicle, so tonight, I got to walk down to Family Video to return a movie of Diddy's that I'd forgotten to take back, then up to the store to get Jonah more Tylenol - the store in question being WalMart. I hate going there, and if I'd had a bit more energy I would have gone to Meijer's, but I just couldn't do it. My legs were seizing up, my back was screaming at me, and I was cursing the state laws that require tags to be renewed every year. All total, I had nearly a 7 mile hike tonight. I had to take a long hot shower to get my muscles to relax enough to bend forward. But, Jonah got his Tylenol, and that's all that matters.
I've been browsing online for a new vehicle. If I get this job, I'd like to start trying to sock away $15 per paycheck toward a down payment. The van's got over 207,000 miles on it, and while it still runs fairly reliably, I'd like to have something a little newer, especially for Flint trips. I'll probably go through Tailored Enterprises again - the whole parking ticket fiasco really did a number on my credit.
My phone's still shut off. Another reason I hope I get the job.
For anyone thinking about making a donation to the blog, as a wonderful girl did recently, I'm having paypal issues. I can accept donations through Jeremy's paypal, however, so leave me a comment with your email, and I'll send you his paypal address.
That's about all I've got tonight. I'm exhausted.
We're past the Neosporin-on-a-gauze-pad phase. We ended up picking up a tube of the Neosporin plus pain relief. That stuff is amazing. If I get this job at the casino, I'm picking up a tube to keep in my knife roll for minor burns. Now we're into the Vaseline-on-a-gauze-pad phase, for the next couple of days.
It doesn't seem to be causing Jonah much pain, except for when he's running and does the splits on accident, or right around bedtime when he's been active all day. Nothing a dose of Tylenol can't fix. It looks to be healing up quite well too. The stitches are dissolving, and most of the redness is gone. His peep doesn't have the "collar" on it that every other circumcised penis that I've seen has, but that's just a cosmetic thing, and perhaps it'll form. If not, I don't really care. The important thing is that it's been mended.
I haven't heard from the casino yet, but it's a holiday weekend. Hopefully I'll know by Wednesday.
I'm still without a street-legal vehicle, so tonight, I got to walk down to Family Video to return a movie of Diddy's that I'd forgotten to take back, then up to the store to get Jonah more Tylenol - the store in question being WalMart. I hate going there, and if I'd had a bit more energy I would have gone to Meijer's, but I just couldn't do it. My legs were seizing up, my back was screaming at me, and I was cursing the state laws that require tags to be renewed every year. All total, I had nearly a 7 mile hike tonight. I had to take a long hot shower to get my muscles to relax enough to bend forward. But, Jonah got his Tylenol, and that's all that matters.
I've been browsing online for a new vehicle. If I get this job, I'd like to start trying to sock away $15 per paycheck toward a down payment. The van's got over 207,000 miles on it, and while it still runs fairly reliably, I'd like to have something a little newer, especially for Flint trips. I'll probably go through Tailored Enterprises again - the whole parking ticket fiasco really did a number on my credit.
My phone's still shut off. Another reason I hope I get the job.
For anyone thinking about making a donation to the blog, as a wonderful girl did recently, I'm having paypal issues. I can accept donations through Jeremy's paypal, however, so leave me a comment with your email, and I'll send you his paypal address.
That's about all I've got tonight. I'm exhausted.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Jonah's Surgery
...was today.
We got to the hospital shortly before 8:00 am and checked in with ambulatory surgery. They had told us to go ahead and bring him in in his pj's, since it was fairly early in the morning, but to bring a change of comfy clothes along to take him home in. So he wore his red fleece footie pajamas with the black dog-bone print there, and I packed his Harley-Davidson hoodie and some baggy khaki shorts for the trip home.
We hung out in the waiting room and read books to Jonah and played with him till around 9:15, when a nurse came and got us. She took us to a corridor with gurneys surrounded by hanging sheets and had us wait there for a few minutes. She came back, did his height, weight, blood pressure, and pulse, and had us confirm his name, date of birth, and told us to describe in our own words what procedure he was having done. For some reason, my choice of the phrase "he's here to have his botched circumcision repaired" seemed to strike her as amusing.
We waited there for a few more minutes, and then they took us to the pre-op room, where they did his blood pressure and pulse again and reviewed his medical history. She went to check and see what time he was supposed to start surgery. She came back at 9:29 and said that the OR was booked for Jonah at 9:30, so it should be any time now. We changed him into a fresh diaper and his hospital johnny and waited. She came back again to let us know that they were running about fifteen or twenty minutes behind on that operating room.
Twenty-one minutes later, the anesthesiologist came in. He introduced himself (I forget his name), and explained his part of the procedure to us. He was going to have the nurse-anesthesiologist come in and give Jonah a dose of a mild tranquilizer first, just to relax him before taking him away from us. Once he was in the OR, they'd use a gas through a mask, rather than subject him to an injection. He would be on an IV throughout the procedure, as well as on forced air. They would have both the anesthesiologist and the nurse-anesthesiologist there, as well as the surgeon and the surgical nurse, there at all times throughout the procedure. After it was done, there would be two nurses with him, one of them having swaddled him in a warm blanket, at all times until we were allowed into post-op once he came out from under the drugs. He would not be waking up on a gurney or bed, but rather, in the arms of one of the nurses. This is done for two different reasons. One is that some children come out of the haze wild and trying to thrash all over the place, and having them swaddled and held prevents them falling and injuring themselves, thus reducing the hospital's liability. The other reason, and the one I prefer, is that it's a little less traumatic, especially for a cuddly little guy like Jonah, to wake up warm and in someone's arms than lying in a strange bed under fluorescent lights with strangers staring at you.
He left, and the nurse-anesthesiologist came in and gave Jonah an oral dose of a pink liquid - Versed, the tranquilizer. She explained more of how the procedure would go - that we would have to leave post-op and go back to the waiting room until they came for us, that Dr. Topley (the surgeon) would come give us a report as soon as Jonah's procedure was over, that we wouldn't be allowed in to see him in post-op until he woke up (which really bugged me - I would think it would be better for him to wake up in MY arms or his father's as opposed to a stranger's, but then, I'm not a medical professional), and that the procedure should take 30 to 40 minutes.
The Versed started kicking in. Jonah was already tired - he was at that point well-overdue for his morning nap - and his eyes started crossing and rolling back in his head. The anesthesiologist came back in, saw that it was working, put the sides up on the gurney, and started to wheel Jonah out. Jonah stretched his arms up to him, and opened and closed his hands rapidly - Jonah-sign for "pick me up, hug me, love me." The anesthesiologist looked to us for permission, and when we nodded, he cuddled him right up into his arms and carried him away. The nurses came back for the gurney.
Jeremy and I went to the waiting room. We took Jonah's pj's out to the car, had a super-rapid cigarette - they'd had us give our cell number just in case we weren't in the waiting room and they needed us - and then ran back inside. We stopped in at the gift shop for Jeremy to get a snack, then hustled back to the waiting room.
My mom, being the totally awesome mom that she is, not only was at our house watching Matthew, but had loaned us her car to take to the hospital, since the van's tags are expired, we have no car insurance, and no money to get either at the moment. I texted her to tell her what was going on, and to see how Matthew was doing. I drank a couple cups of lousy hospital coffee - there's a Roast n Toast at Burns Clinic, but that's at the other end of the hospital complex and I didn't want to go that far away just to satisfy a caffeine jones. I read a Northern Express, a Women's Day, and a Vanity Fair. Then I stared at the TV - the Today show was on, I think, followed by Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? And we waited. And we waited.
An hour later, Dr. Topley called us back to the consult room. He told us that everything was fine. It had taken longer than expected because of the number and level of adhesions. Jonah had quite a serious case of phimosis. He gave us the after-care instructions and told us he wanted to see Jonah again in 3-4 weeks for a check-up. My brain had locked onto the words "number, level, adhesions." I said, "So, we had to do this then." It was a stupid statement, totally brainless; I knew it had to get done. I'd done research. We'd known it was necessary since Jonah was five days old. I think what I was looking for was reassurance that the pain that my son was going to suffer was needed, wasn't cosmetic but medically required. And Dr. Topley knew that that's why I'd said that. He said "yes. It had to be done. He was completely bound up." He reassured us that Jonah would be just fine, and that we'd be able to see him as soon as he started waking up.
We sat back down. I called Mom to give her the update. She told me that Matthew had been an angel - he always is for other people, lol - and that he'd been speaking 3/4 English and 1/4 Matthew speak all morning, and a lot of both. We hung up. I sat back down by Jeremy and reviewed the aftercare instructions in my head - which were identical to the newborn circ care. I made a list in my head of the stuff we'd need to get.
Finally - about fifteen to twenty minutes later, the nurse came for us. We had to stop at the restroom so I could pee - too much hospital coffee hit at the exact worst moment - and then we followed the signs to get to post-op. We could hear Jonah screaming. We got in the room.
His eyes were going in two different directions, but his howls were rage more than pain. His hand with the IV needle was strapped to some sort of stabilizer and wrapped in an Ace bandage. It was making him furious. He kept trying to claw at it. The nurse immediately handed him off to us - Jonah wanted me (mommy's boy) - and I started rocking him and whispering to him. He thrashed and roared and screamed and sobbed, and I couldn't help it, I started crying too. Worst thing to do, I think - I really didn't want him picking up on any negative emotions from me and feeding off them - but I couldn't help it. I'd been running on adrenaline, coffee, and steel will since Monday, and it all came down at once, at the sound of my baby in panic and distress. He clawed the needle out. They had to call a second nurse. He shook his hand and flung it, then bent and tried to claw off the hospital bracelets on his ankle. They turned the lights down and left us alone with him for a minute. I tried to get my crying under control - hell, I'm choking up now writing about it - while they were gone. The pre-op nurse came back with some apple juice in a cup with a straw. Jonah's tears and yells immediately ceased and he lunged for the cup with both hands. He sucked it dry, then thrust it back at her and started crying again. She stood there for a minute, until we told her he was still thirsty and wanted more apple juice. She said she'd just bring the container to pour into the cup, and then she'd let us get him calmed down for fifteen minutes or so before discharging us.
Jonah sucked down the second round of apple juice in about 90 seconds. I refilled the cup with water, which he immediately drained. I felt even more terrible for him - he hadn't been allowed any water since 5:00 am, and no food since 11:55 pm. Since he'd fallen asleep around 1:30, he hadn't had either since 11:55 pm the previous night. It was 1:20 pm. He must have been starving. To make it just a little more worse, he had gas from the air, and from his dinner the night before (beef stroganoff). He went back and forth between Jeremy and I for a while, then finally settled back into his drug-induced haze. We got him out of the johnny, peeled the electrode-things from his chest, and got him dressed. She came back and had us sign some stuff, and we were free to leave.
We stopped off at the Dollar Tree to pick up gauze pads, Vaseline, Neosporin, decongestants for me, and children's Tylenol for Jonah. They had everything but the Tylenol, so that necessitated another stop, this one at the grocery store by our house. And then, finally, at 1:45 pm, we had Jonah home.
The technical name for what was wrong with him is "incomplete circumcision" and "phimosis." Basically, it's as I described in my previous entry. Not enough skin was taken off, and his foreskin became too tight. Had we not had the procedure done, he would have developed difficulty with urination and with erections. He had already started showing the erection difficulty - little boys tend to get hard when they're having their diapers changed and when they're being bathed, it just happens. Jonah would get about halfway there, then make a grimacing face.
In uncircumcised boys, phimosis usually develops at the age of 2 and lasts until they are 12. Jonah's started developing between the age of 1-2 weeks. In other words, not good.
According to Dr. Topley, the phimosis went for nearly the entire length of his penis. In other words, had we not had this done, once he'd gotten past puberty, he would most likely have been unable to achieve an erection at all. (This is my inference from what he said and from my research.) Also, phimosis is linked to penile ulcers and, strangely enough, to diabetes.
It had to be done.
I have to keep telling myself this.
It had to be done.
I tell myself this through every agonizing diaper and dressing change. Urination makes him scream. Changing the dressing results in ten to fifteen minutes of heart-rending sobs. The fact that he has a cold on top of this all does not help in the slightest.
For the next two days, we have to coat a piece of gauze in Neosporin and wrap it around his penis. After that, Vaseline for a few more days. He has dissolving stitches (THANK GOD, I can't imagine trying to take him in to get regular ones removed). No immersion baths for a week. I'm going to have to try to get some dry shampoo for him, I think. I can't just wash his head over the sink - he won't stay still for it, he splashes water every chance he gets, and there's just too much risk for injury there. He has his re-check in 3-4 weeks. He gets two children's Tylenol meltaway tablets every four hours for the pain. (The proper dosage - he weighs 29 lbs.)
The next two to four days are going to be hell for my baby.
But it had to be done.
I just have to keep telling myself that.
And thank God and every deity there is from every possible pantheon that he won't remember it.
pre-op.
pre-op
post-op. Pretty groggy
post-op again. Enjoying his apple juice
We got to the hospital shortly before 8:00 am and checked in with ambulatory surgery. They had told us to go ahead and bring him in in his pj's, since it was fairly early in the morning, but to bring a change of comfy clothes along to take him home in. So he wore his red fleece footie pajamas with the black dog-bone print there, and I packed his Harley-Davidson hoodie and some baggy khaki shorts for the trip home.
We hung out in the waiting room and read books to Jonah and played with him till around 9:15, when a nurse came and got us. She took us to a corridor with gurneys surrounded by hanging sheets and had us wait there for a few minutes. She came back, did his height, weight, blood pressure, and pulse, and had us confirm his name, date of birth, and told us to describe in our own words what procedure he was having done. For some reason, my choice of the phrase "he's here to have his botched circumcision repaired" seemed to strike her as amusing.
We waited there for a few more minutes, and then they took us to the pre-op room, where they did his blood pressure and pulse again and reviewed his medical history. She went to check and see what time he was supposed to start surgery. She came back at 9:29 and said that the OR was booked for Jonah at 9:30, so it should be any time now. We changed him into a fresh diaper and his hospital johnny and waited. She came back again to let us know that they were running about fifteen or twenty minutes behind on that operating room.
Twenty-one minutes later, the anesthesiologist came in. He introduced himself (I forget his name), and explained his part of the procedure to us. He was going to have the nurse-anesthesiologist come in and give Jonah a dose of a mild tranquilizer first, just to relax him before taking him away from us. Once he was in the OR, they'd use a gas through a mask, rather than subject him to an injection. He would be on an IV throughout the procedure, as well as on forced air. They would have both the anesthesiologist and the nurse-anesthesiologist there, as well as the surgeon and the surgical nurse, there at all times throughout the procedure. After it was done, there would be two nurses with him, one of them having swaddled him in a warm blanket, at all times until we were allowed into post-op once he came out from under the drugs. He would not be waking up on a gurney or bed, but rather, in the arms of one of the nurses. This is done for two different reasons. One is that some children come out of the haze wild and trying to thrash all over the place, and having them swaddled and held prevents them falling and injuring themselves, thus reducing the hospital's liability. The other reason, and the one I prefer, is that it's a little less traumatic, especially for a cuddly little guy like Jonah, to wake up warm and in someone's arms than lying in a strange bed under fluorescent lights with strangers staring at you.
He left, and the nurse-anesthesiologist came in and gave Jonah an oral dose of a pink liquid - Versed, the tranquilizer. She explained more of how the procedure would go - that we would have to leave post-op and go back to the waiting room until they came for us, that Dr. Topley (the surgeon) would come give us a report as soon as Jonah's procedure was over, that we wouldn't be allowed in to see him in post-op until he woke up (which really bugged me - I would think it would be better for him to wake up in MY arms or his father's as opposed to a stranger's, but then, I'm not a medical professional), and that the procedure should take 30 to 40 minutes.
The Versed started kicking in. Jonah was already tired - he was at that point well-overdue for his morning nap - and his eyes started crossing and rolling back in his head. The anesthesiologist came back in, saw that it was working, put the sides up on the gurney, and started to wheel Jonah out. Jonah stretched his arms up to him, and opened and closed his hands rapidly - Jonah-sign for "pick me up, hug me, love me." The anesthesiologist looked to us for permission, and when we nodded, he cuddled him right up into his arms and carried him away. The nurses came back for the gurney.
Jeremy and I went to the waiting room. We took Jonah's pj's out to the car, had a super-rapid cigarette - they'd had us give our cell number just in case we weren't in the waiting room and they needed us - and then ran back inside. We stopped in at the gift shop for Jeremy to get a snack, then hustled back to the waiting room.
My mom, being the totally awesome mom that she is, not only was at our house watching Matthew, but had loaned us her car to take to the hospital, since the van's tags are expired, we have no car insurance, and no money to get either at the moment. I texted her to tell her what was going on, and to see how Matthew was doing. I drank a couple cups of lousy hospital coffee - there's a Roast n Toast at Burns Clinic, but that's at the other end of the hospital complex and I didn't want to go that far away just to satisfy a caffeine jones. I read a Northern Express, a Women's Day, and a Vanity Fair. Then I stared at the TV - the Today show was on, I think, followed by Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? And we waited. And we waited.
An hour later, Dr. Topley called us back to the consult room. He told us that everything was fine. It had taken longer than expected because of the number and level of adhesions. Jonah had quite a serious case of phimosis. He gave us the after-care instructions and told us he wanted to see Jonah again in 3-4 weeks for a check-up. My brain had locked onto the words "number, level, adhesions." I said, "So, we had to do this then." It was a stupid statement, totally brainless; I knew it had to get done. I'd done research. We'd known it was necessary since Jonah was five days old. I think what I was looking for was reassurance that the pain that my son was going to suffer was needed, wasn't cosmetic but medically required. And Dr. Topley knew that that's why I'd said that. He said "yes. It had to be done. He was completely bound up." He reassured us that Jonah would be just fine, and that we'd be able to see him as soon as he started waking up.
We sat back down. I called Mom to give her the update. She told me that Matthew had been an angel - he always is for other people, lol - and that he'd been speaking 3/4 English and 1/4 Matthew speak all morning, and a lot of both. We hung up. I sat back down by Jeremy and reviewed the aftercare instructions in my head - which were identical to the newborn circ care. I made a list in my head of the stuff we'd need to get.
Finally - about fifteen to twenty minutes later, the nurse came for us. We had to stop at the restroom so I could pee - too much hospital coffee hit at the exact worst moment - and then we followed the signs to get to post-op. We could hear Jonah screaming. We got in the room.
His eyes were going in two different directions, but his howls were rage more than pain. His hand with the IV needle was strapped to some sort of stabilizer and wrapped in an Ace bandage. It was making him furious. He kept trying to claw at it. The nurse immediately handed him off to us - Jonah wanted me (mommy's boy) - and I started rocking him and whispering to him. He thrashed and roared and screamed and sobbed, and I couldn't help it, I started crying too. Worst thing to do, I think - I really didn't want him picking up on any negative emotions from me and feeding off them - but I couldn't help it. I'd been running on adrenaline, coffee, and steel will since Monday, and it all came down at once, at the sound of my baby in panic and distress. He clawed the needle out. They had to call a second nurse. He shook his hand and flung it, then bent and tried to claw off the hospital bracelets on his ankle. They turned the lights down and left us alone with him for a minute. I tried to get my crying under control - hell, I'm choking up now writing about it - while they were gone. The pre-op nurse came back with some apple juice in a cup with a straw. Jonah's tears and yells immediately ceased and he lunged for the cup with both hands. He sucked it dry, then thrust it back at her and started crying again. She stood there for a minute, until we told her he was still thirsty and wanted more apple juice. She said she'd just bring the container to pour into the cup, and then she'd let us get him calmed down for fifteen minutes or so before discharging us.
Jonah sucked down the second round of apple juice in about 90 seconds. I refilled the cup with water, which he immediately drained. I felt even more terrible for him - he hadn't been allowed any water since 5:00 am, and no food since 11:55 pm. Since he'd fallen asleep around 1:30, he hadn't had either since 11:55 pm the previous night. It was 1:20 pm. He must have been starving. To make it just a little more worse, he had gas from the air, and from his dinner the night before (beef stroganoff). He went back and forth between Jeremy and I for a while, then finally settled back into his drug-induced haze. We got him out of the johnny, peeled the electrode-things from his chest, and got him dressed. She came back and had us sign some stuff, and we were free to leave.
We stopped off at the Dollar Tree to pick up gauze pads, Vaseline, Neosporin, decongestants for me, and children's Tylenol for Jonah. They had everything but the Tylenol, so that necessitated another stop, this one at the grocery store by our house. And then, finally, at 1:45 pm, we had Jonah home.
The technical name for what was wrong with him is "incomplete circumcision" and "phimosis." Basically, it's as I described in my previous entry. Not enough skin was taken off, and his foreskin became too tight. Had we not had the procedure done, he would have developed difficulty with urination and with erections. He had already started showing the erection difficulty - little boys tend to get hard when they're having their diapers changed and when they're being bathed, it just happens. Jonah would get about halfway there, then make a grimacing face.
In uncircumcised boys, phimosis usually develops at the age of 2 and lasts until they are 12. Jonah's started developing between the age of 1-2 weeks. In other words, not good.
According to Dr. Topley, the phimosis went for nearly the entire length of his penis. In other words, had we not had this done, once he'd gotten past puberty, he would most likely have been unable to achieve an erection at all. (This is my inference from what he said and from my research.) Also, phimosis is linked to penile ulcers and, strangely enough, to diabetes.
It had to be done.
I have to keep telling myself this.
It had to be done.
I tell myself this through every agonizing diaper and dressing change. Urination makes him scream. Changing the dressing results in ten to fifteen minutes of heart-rending sobs. The fact that he has a cold on top of this all does not help in the slightest.
For the next two days, we have to coat a piece of gauze in Neosporin and wrap it around his penis. After that, Vaseline for a few more days. He has dissolving stitches (THANK GOD, I can't imagine trying to take him in to get regular ones removed). No immersion baths for a week. I'm going to have to try to get some dry shampoo for him, I think. I can't just wash his head over the sink - he won't stay still for it, he splashes water every chance he gets, and there's just too much risk for injury there. He has his re-check in 3-4 weeks. He gets two children's Tylenol meltaway tablets every four hours for the pain. (The proper dosage - he weighs 29 lbs.)
The next two to four days are going to be hell for my baby.
But it had to be done.
I just have to keep telling myself that.
And thank God and every deity there is from every possible pantheon that he won't remember it.
pre-op.
pre-op
post-op. Pretty groggy
post-op again. Enjoying his apple juice
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