Backtrack to a week ago...Shiloh's hernia

They had to do three incisions. :( This is his poor tummy the morning after.

I haven't been very good at updating my blog with pics and life events lately. Sometimes it is just good to just write what you want not what you feel you should be. This feeling and action upon this feeling has lead me to a lot of catch up to do on the blog. About 4 or 5 weeks ago we noticed that Shiloh had a slight lump in his groin area. We may not have noticed except for the fact that Kenny has a hernia in the same area currently. We watched it for a couple of days, and were convinced that it was a hernia as well. This worried me. For any of you who know me, I am NOT someone who rushes to the doc about everything, but Kenny had been doing all sorts of research about what can be done for an inguinal hernia. The only thing that can be done is surgery, so we took him to the Pediatrician. The Pediatrician said it was for sure a hernia, and that with Shiloh being so young it was dangerous not to operate.

You see, with adults, you can wait for a period of time. Monitor the pain and firmness of the hernia and decide whether or not it is time to get surgery or to wait. Whit a child of 1 year old, he can't tells us if it hurts, if it is tight, if it bothers him. I could monitor the firmness, but not every second of every day.

The pediatrician referred us to a pediatric surgeon in Columbia (30 minutes away). We went to see him a few weeks later. He said that Shiloh definitely needed surgery, and, although it wasn't an emergency situation, it was something that we shouldn't wait too long for.

In case you didn't know, I am having another baby in June. I didn't want the surgery to be too close to that date. (i.e. nothing in May or after) Kenny's parents are coming to town next week ( March 17th-25th) I didn't want surgery to be in that week either. Of course the 3 dates that were given us to choose from were in May, the week that Kenny's parents are in town or that Friday (March 2nd). So we opted for the surgery date of March 2nd.

I am such a worry wart about everything in general, so you can imagine the amount of anxiety I was having about Shiloh being put to sleep and being cut open.

Well, surgery day came. We had to make Shiloh fast for 6 hours prior to the surgery. NOT easy with a 1 year old. He took it like a champ poor kid. We got to the hospital, they did all of the required paperwork, and then we waited for a bit. They took us back into a room. Luckily, Shiloh is a huge people person. He took to one of the nurses immediately. She was playing cars with him and he was happy to have her hold him. We talked about options for pain relief. They offered an epidural. I said no. If you know me and my story about the epidural during birth, then you know why I said no. If you don't, just know that it wasn't pleasant for me. They decided to things the conventional way (i.e. IV and local anesthetic)

When it came time to take Shiloh away, he was happy as a clam. Poor kid, didn't even know what about to happen. He just thought some nice friends were going to take him away to play. He didn't shed a single tear. Wish I could say the same for me. The minute he was out of ear shot, I cried like a baby. I could blame it on being pregnant, but it was just me. I was worried and sad and nervous for the recovery.

Surgery went really well. They said his hernia for his size was huge and it was good we got it taken care of. When they brought Shiloh from the recovery room to his little room to finish waking up, it was so heart wrenching! He was hooked up to tubes and needles. He looked beyond drunk. He kept crying, and his head kept flailing around. The poor guy couldn't keep it up. Eventually he was awake enough for us to take him home.

That night was fairly rough. Shiloh would cry whenever he twisted the wrong way or tried to use his abs at all. He did really well though, all things considered. He finally got to eat, which I think made him the happiest. Come on people! I have foodie on my hands! He was full and would still ask for more and get mad if we didn't give it to him. I think he was just testing to see if he really could eat whenever he wanted. He didn't want us to withhold food anymore. The only thing that seemed to comfort him was if daddy would hold him and walk him around. There was NO sitting aloud. He just kept pointing to things and Kenny just kept humoring him and walking to whatever he pointed to. Normally this would not have been tolerated for long, but when your kid has had as rough of a day as Shiloh had, you are pretty much willing to do WHATEVER it takes to keep them from crying and hurting. Kenny was a champ through it all.

Luckily that night he crashed for the whole night! It was a blessing for all of us. The next day he was a new kid. He was crawling and walking around. He would get a little grumpy when it was time for motrin, but other than that he was doing great.

Fast forward to a week later... He is back to himself and his incisions look great. The super glue has worn off and they just look little. There is no bruising anymore either. I am so glad that we don't have to worry about the hernia or the surgery. I am glad it is over with, and I am thankful for so many answered prayers last weekend. Hopefully we don't have to go through that again.