Surgery No. 2

Tuesday we all treated ourselves to a late morning and slept in. After getting Ryder off to school Adam, my mom, and I went back to the hospital to see Brody. When we arrived we found Brody with the Picc Line in his head and unfortunatley the tip of the line was still in the wrong spot. An x-ray showed that it was about a centimeter from where it needed to be. ...three attempted picc lines, failed. The last option was another surgery to place a central line in his chest. The doctor also wanted to go ahead and put the catheter for dialysis in Brody. Dr. Brand, a pediatric surgeon, explained to us that he needed to go ahead and do the surgery now so it would have time to heal before they would have to use it.  The pediatric nephrologist, Dr. Jernigan, told us she's only seen it happen twice where they've placed a dialysis catheter and not needed it. ....We're praying that Brody is lucky number 3!

The surgery took about an hour and according to the docs, it's a very simple surgery. Brody did really well but my poor little guy is very swollen and puffy from the 2 surgeries. Here he is, after surgery number 2...

...His eye is all red because they had tape over his eyes. And he's now sporting a bald spot thanks to the failed attempt at the picc line in his head.

I wish I could just scoop him up and love all over him and tell him everything is going to be ok. Instead, all I can do is talk to him and touch his little hand or foot (which is like a little pin cushion, constantly being stuck to get some blood). ...I'm so hesitant to touch him too. After scrubbing in once we get to the NICU and then washing our hands after touching ANYTHING, I am still scared of germs. There is an extremely high risk of infection with all these tubes going in and out of him...7 different tubes in him at this point: breathing tube in his throat, a tube in his stomach to suction out air that gets in his belly, the central line in his chest, the IV in his hand (soon to be removed), dialysis catheter, tube to drain fluid from his kidney, and catheter in his bladder.

We stayed a while and then said our "see you laters" to Brody. It is so incredibly hard to leave him and I doubt it's going to get any easier. We called the NICU later that evening to check on Brody and the nurse said he was doing just fine.

Once at home, we selfishly let Ryder stay up a little late so we could give him some attention...I've felt a little like a neglecting mother lately. We had a good time playing with stickers and then paid for it when we tried to get Ryder to bed. I think he was overly tired because he put up a good fight. He finally, through tears, said "I want to say prayers for Brody!". So we said our prayers and Ryder fell asleep. A good sleep too...I don't think he moved all night!