Recovery Day One

With the first big hurdle past us, my attention was now focused on pain management.  Dr. Inglis and the nurses explained that they have developed a new pain management regime and asked us to record the medication administered over the next several days so that we could report back to them for their research.  Expecting something complicated, I was surprised to hear the regime is simply this: Give Tylenol and ibuprofen every 6 hours but alternating them every three.  So, first Tylenol, three hours later, ibuprofen, three hours later Tylenol, and so on.  Do this 24 hours a day for a minimum of 3 days, longer if needed. Oxycodone was prescribed for "break through" pain as needed. Although they said we would likely not need much of the narcotics.

I was skeptical.  Really? Tylenol and ibuprofen?  No way is that strong enough.  But these guys are experts so we figured it was worth a try.  And at 1:00 p.m., my little guy received his first dose of Tylenol.

For the rest of the day, my little guy lounged around, watched TV and asked often for food.  Prior to surgery, he had proclaimed that he was planning to eat ice cream for every meal and he took this mission very seriously.  As soon as we got home, he asked for ice cream.  20 minutes later when he saw us eating lunch, he was insulted that he had not received ice cream for lunch.  The ice cream he had 20 minutes prior was his "makeup breakfast".  My heart was singing at the quick return of his witty personality and big appetite.

We maintained the pain regime, offered water often and stayed attentive to him.  He would quiet down the last 30 minutes of each 3 hour stretch between medication but other than that, seemed relatively normal.  He seemed a little quieter than normal around 8:45 p.m. so we offered him his first dose of oxycodone before bedtime.  10 minutes later he was jumping and throwing stuffed Angry Birds at me.  Clearly not inducing the sedating effects promised on the bottle.

We set up him for bed in our room so we could keep a close eye on him.  My big snuggler had not problem with this arrangement.  We got the humidifier going as we had been told this helps keep the throat moist, thereby reducing pain in the morning. And, we set our alarms for three hours later.

It was an uneventful night.  And much, much harder on mom and dad than our son. We dutifully got up every three hours, gave him his meds and went back to sleep.  Without one peep or cry of pain from him.  I know there is a long road still ahead, but honestly could not have imagined a better first day.  On to Day 2!