Today we came in around noon (Shell and I) to see Mikey. We had an appointment with a couple of Sisters of our Lady of Mercy, praying over Mikey. They had part of the vestments of Sister Faustina, a saint from Poland that is well known for miracles happening after a particular prayer they say. What's weird about this experience is that Shell and I both recounted how we felt about the prayer a few hours later and we both had bad feelings while they were praying. Kind of weird and I'm sure not caused by the kind ladies praying for him, but strange, nonetheless.
After they left, we were setting up to hold Mikey when his face turned the brightest red I've ever seen - boy was he pissed off at something. So we scooped him up and put him in his mommy's arms and he seemed contented...for a while anyway. It seemed every time she moved him around he would get really upset and turn red again. With the trach, we don't get to hear the normal crying that would go with the rest of the act. Think baby-mime, if you will. So Shell asks the question, why is he crying? A brilliant nurse says "Oh honey, probably one of the hundred reasons a baby might cry." So Shell and I do the Mommy and Daddy thing and check his diaper, I ask to vent his gtube to see if he needed a burp, etc. Meanwhile he's still super pissed and red. So Shell says, "I don't think this is normal pain. Mike let's look at the wound." We open up his blanket and shirt and find his bandage over the gtube incision a brownish red color and soaking through and running down to his diaper.
Then Shell says, "what's that purple thing that's coming out from under the gauze?"
Turns out it was his liver.
Yup, his stitches had broken open and his Mommy had to outsmart the nurses again and figure out what was wrong with her son.
So I'm going to write a book called the "One Hundred and ONE Things that a Baby Might Cry About". Number 101 will calmly say:
"When all else fails, check his belly to see if your little one has popped his liver out onto his belly button. Call Surgeon immediately to stitch back in place"
So, Mikey was then rushed to an emergency surgery to have it cleaned out and closed up again. Only this time, since the muscles had allowed the stitches to tear through, they had to put a sort of screen over the wound and will let the wound heal from the inside out. For those of you trying to capture a mental picture, it's about a three inch long by inch and a half wide hole in his belly. Look closely and you'll see his liver staring at you. It'll take the poor little guy several weeks to have the wound grow over.
Surgery went well and he's stable and resting well on some narcotics tonight. He's a tough little dude though - just like the other night, about an hour after surgery he woke right up to his Grandma's hands and held her fingers for a couple hours. He got his meds quite a bit faster tonight and went right back to sleep.
Here's a picture of me kissing my boy goodnight.
