Afterwards in the NICU, I spent some time with him as he recovered. The tough little guy actually started to wake up very early from the meds. They had to scramble to get more into him to calm him back down again because he could likely feel the pain a bit. Thank God babies don't remember the hell they go through to get home, eh?
Here's a picture of him after the surgery - it's nice to see him without one single tube on his precious little face. The red is just from tape coming off - so far that's always resolved itself in a day. I put it up because maybe by seeing this on my baby, none of you will see it on yours, ever. I do feel he is going to start blossoming now that we've gotten his airway and feeding situations in a quasi permanent state. He'll be able to deal with his environment better and grow better. That being said, plastic accessories weren't meant for kids. They were better on my GIJoe guys.The black cords are pull strings to pull the trachea up to the skin for easy re-insertion of the trach should it come loose for any reason - like him being a wise guy and pulling it out. He will not have the ventilator tubing attached there forever - that's just to recover from surgery. The bandage down below on his belly is where they went in to fix him up and attach the G-tube.
Sleep well buddy.
