Brave Little Boy

Okay. Long day. We had a wonderful pre-op experience. Graham did fine with just clear liquids for the morning and was his normal cheery self when we got here and as we were checking in. He had the surgery nurses wrapped around his little finger within 5 minutes...Flirt. They gave him something (by Mommy's request) to make him a little loopy for when the time came to say good-bye and send him back to surgery around 2pm. That part went great...no tears.
The surgery took longer than we had expected...about 3 hours. Graham did NOT come out of recovery well. He was very agitated and in obvious discomfort. Anyone who has had surgery knows awful it is waking up and those first few hours thereafter. Bill and I held him during that time, but laid him down when we got to our room thinking that might be a little more comfortable. After some more pain meds, some songs and getting him all snuggled in, Graham dozed off around 830p and has been asleep since. Poor little guy.
We caught a little look at the expanders...not what I expected. They are bigger than I had envisioned. They also look painful. During Graham's surgery, the surgeon put some pressure on the omphalocele to see how his body would react and the pressure on his lungs made his respirations go way up. This will be an issue come September.
Bill and I are staying in Graham's room tonight and going to get some sleep as soon as I tie up here. We're hoping for a pain free night.
Graham was such a brave boy today. I'm so proud of him. In a moment with my mom tonight, through my tears I exclaimed, "I can't believe we are doing this to him!" Her response, "We are doing this FOR him." I will try not to lose sight of that in the hard moments of seeing him in pain that I can't take away.
I'm hoping after sleeping off some of the yucky anethesia and staying on top of the discomfort, we'll get a Graham smile tomorrow. We'll see.