Carson's surgery was a success!!!

Dawn,
Carson is doing good. Here's the most recent update that I just wrote. You can post it if you have time.

Carson had his final hernia surgery on Monday to close the hole in his abdomen. Everything went really well and the doctors were able to complete the closure. We’re so glad that the hernia is taken care of and is behind us now. It’s nice to have something complete. The doctors will be monitoring his bowel function and will likely try to give him some food in the next three weeks. That all depends on how soon everything returns to normal function.

Carson has been put back onto some sedation to help with his pain and irritation from surgery. We wish he could be past that since he’s often sleeping when we visit him. We’ve had a few days that we’ve been able to see him open his eyes. Heather is betting that they will be blue, but I’m thinking that they will be brown.

We were able to meet again with the ENT doctor on Monday. He explained to us the whole process of having a tracheotomy. It sometimes sounds a little overwhelming, but I think we’ll make it through it. He dispelled some of the myths that were hanging around about having a trachea tube. First, he does not need to have a tube into his stomach to feed him; the doctor said that he should be able to swallow, with some possible difficulty. We also learned that he will be able to talk. It depends on his mental ability and if he can figure out how to use a trachea tube with a talking button on it (he’d have to push the button when he wanted to talk). There are a lot of other things that we have to learn about taking care of a child with a trachea tube, so we are going to be meeting with a respiratory therapist soon to get educated. In light of everything that we’ve learned, we are moving ahead with the trachea tube and he has a tentative surgery date of Monday the 26^th to have that put in.

My mom (Steve’s mom) flew in last night from Michigan. She’s her to help take care of Heather and drive her around as she heals from her C-section. She told me that she was going to pamper Heather, which she obviously deserves. So, I’m waiting to see who is flying in to pamper me. Any volunteers?

We do appreciate all of the support that we’ve been receiving from everyone. We do feel very blessed to have such great friends and family. Thanks again to everyone who has been praying for us, helping with food, taking care of my jungle yard and so on. It’s a big relief to us.