As most people know, Baden had a little stay in the hospital recently. I want to document here all that happened leading up to and during his hospital stay. On Sunday night we had our home teacher Adam Fairbanks along with Grandpa Anderson, Uncle Robb and of course dad give Baden a blessing before his surgery. I had been kind of nervous up to that time, but felt a real peace after they gave him the blessing. He proved to be his typical stubborn self and wiggled around so much during the blessing they ended up taking him from my lap and Jed held him in his arms and continued the blessing that way.
We checked into Primary Children's Hospital at 11:45 am on Tuesday March 13th. Baden was totally oblivious to what was going on, of course. He had to fast from midnight on, only drinking clear liquids in the morning, until 10:00 am. And then after that NOTHING! He refused to drink any water or juice in the morning so I imagine he was pretty hungry. We felt bad and didn't want to eat in front of him, so we took turns hiding out in the kitchen eating cold cereal before we left for the hospital. Baden didn't seem to be phased at all by the no food or drink and was just happy to be surrounded by so many new toys to play with. Once we got checked in at the surgical center and got the boys stats and vitals recorded, they dressed him in his cute little hospital jammies. We were then taken over to the surgery waiting area, where we were to wait until they were ready for us. They were running a bit behind and so we ended up waiting about an hour or so there. While we waited, the nurse who would be taking him into surgery came and talked to us. She was super nice to take time and sit down and chat. I'm sure she had a lot of other things to do. Dr. Snow, the surgeon came and briefly met with us. We had never met him before. When we dealt with his office before, we always say his PA-Heidi White, whom we love! Dr. Snow explained again what they would be doing and how long it would take and then he was off. Once they were ready for Baden, the nurse returned with the anesthesiologist and he told us how they would walk him back and give him something like versed to settle him down before they put in his IV and put him completely under. So with that, it was our cue to say our goodbyes and begin the wait. The hospital has all kinds of wagons and foot propelled cars to take the kids away in. Baden chose a car and thought he was in heaven! He hardly even noticed that we were saying goodbye to him and just continued on down the hallway with the RN and DR with a huge smile on his face. I can only imagine what he was like once he realized we were no longer there and they began to get him prepped for the anesthesia.
Once we left him in the care of the surgery staff, we went down to the surgery waiting room and checked in. We then booked it down to the cafeteria to eat. We were starving! I think that's what lack of sleep and worry do to you, not to mention the meager bowl of cereal we had eaten hours earlier. We hadn't eaten anything since early morning and it was now 2:00 pm. We got some food and went back up to the waiting area to wait for word about his surgery. About an hour into it, the nurse called to tell us he was doing great and they were almost done. Once they were done, Dr. Snow came in and reported that all went perfectly. They ended up doing what is called a Bilateral Resection of the Bladder and Ureters...that's not the real name of it, but I can't remember exactly what it is called. Basically what they did was detach the ureters at the bladder and cross them over. So the left one was crossed over to the right and the right crossed over to the left. That causes some constriction of the ureters to make them narrower than they were. Then when they are re-attached to the bladder they also create a flap that will open to let urine pass through, but most importantly CLOSE to prevent the urine from going back up into the kidneys. He has about a 2 inch incision just above the pubic bone. Along with the incision are two tubes for drainage. Those will help urine drain for about two weeks while all the swelling from surgery goes down. We have to double diaper him during this time. One diaper to catch the poops and then the second diaper with the tubes on the outside to collect the urine and to keep the tubes away from any bowel movements...don't want any of that nastiness coming in contact with the open tubes that go directly into his bladder. He gets the tubes removed on the 26th and we are really excited about that. The double diapering is not fun nor is it easy to keep up with the flow or urine, since it is constant, or keeping the boy from trying to pull on the tubes.
We were told to expect a 2-4 day stay in the hospital, but our stubborn little boy proved to be quite the fighter and proved the doctors wrong. As soon as I got back to the surgery recovery after he woke up the nurse told me he was a fighter. Most people kind of slowly wake from anesthesia, but she said Baden was rolling around like an alligator. They had a hard time keeping him still so they could get his vitals and keep him calm. Once I got there, he calmed down a bit, but not much. I found that if I held him close and tight he calmed down and was ok unless he was put back down in bed. Shortly after that we were moved up to the 3rd floor to his room for the duration. We had a pretty uneventful night. Baden pretty much slept through the rest of the afternoon and night, only waking up when he was disturbed to get his meds or vitals checked. I stayed the night on the couch/bed they have in the room and Jed stayed at a nearby hotel that his dad booked for us.
About 4:00 in the morning the nurse came in to check Baden's vitals and give him his meds. We changed his diaper and that woke him up enough that he was wide eyed and bushy tailed and ready to start the day. I however, was not. I put his favorite movie, Finding Nemo on and we watched that and he cuddled up with me on the couch. Once the movie was over, he was ready to go. Trying to get off the couch and walk around. He was kind of unsteady on his feet at first, but became pretty steady after a few minutes. We asked the nurse if we could walk around and she found a car he could ride in while I pushed it. We made one round of the hallways and then Baden wanted out. I let him out to see if he wanted to walk around, but he didn't want to do that. He wanted to push that darn car around. I wish I would have had a photo of him doing that. Here we are at 6:00 am, going up and down the hallways with him pushing the car as fast as he could go, with his IV tubes trailing behind him. It was pretty darn cute and funny. The resident came in to check on him that morning and told us we could go home that day because he had reached all the goals he needed to be able to go home. He had kept his meds down, had kept fluids down, had eaten solids, was walking and was passing urine. So, not even 24 hrs. after arriving at the hospital, we were out of there. That day after surgery we were super encouraged because he was walking around like nobody's business. You would never have thought he had just had a major surgery. The next day 2nd day after surgery he was completely different. He wouldn't walk or even stand up. He would just sit and cry and wanted to be held all day. We were happy to oblige with that and just took it pretty easy that day. The next day he was almost back to normal so we knew we were on our way with a good recovery.
After having gone through this experience, we feel so blessed with how everything went. We could not have asked for a better outcome or an easier recovery for our little cutie. We look forward to seeing how this will work and hope that this will be the end of the line for Baden and UTI'S!
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