Parker's Surgery

A week ago today Parker had surgery to remove his swollen lymph nodes. Friday, June 24 we met with Dr. Mark Stovroff, a pediatric surgeon, who right away diagnosed Parker with Chronic Lymphadenitis, and let us know that the only treatment for it was surgery and that they needed to come out as soon as possible. As worried as we were about him undergoing surgery, we were also very relieved to finally know what was wrong with our baby. It is pretty scary and frustrating to know that there is something going on with your child, but not know what it is or how to take care of it, especially after going to the doctor 4 times in the last 5 months and having extensive bloodowork done.

Parker's surgery was scheduled for 8:00 am last Monday. Brad and I were a ball of nerves and hardly got any sleep the whole weekend worrying about the surgery. We were so thankful for all of the prayers that our family and friends were sending up on Parker's behalf. We arrived at the hospital at 6:45 Monday morning to check in and my parents and Brad's mom met us up there. We took Parker back around 7:00 and spent the next hour sitting with him and trying to entertain him before his surgery began. The nurses were very nice and tried to entertain him with blow up latex gloves and by walking him around, but he was less than amused. All he wanted was food and few more hours of sleep and neither of those were going to happen! They took him back for surgery around 8:25 and we went to sit with our parents and Braden in the waiting room. We were so relieved to see the doctor just after 9:00 and he told us that the surgery went well. He removed a large portion of the lymph nodes and he was sending them off to find out the cause of the problem. He said he cut under his ear and used glue over his stitches rather than a bandage because he was afraid that Parker would rip the bandage off. He didn't have to put in in a stint, which I was really relieved about. The only thing we had to do was wait and make sure there wasn't going to be any nerve damage.

A few minutes later the nurse came back and we headed back to recovery. We were warned before he went into surgery that he would probably be "raging" after his surgery, but I never expected it to be as bad as it was. He was half awake, half aslep from the anesthesia, but he was screaming and trying to rip his IV out. They let me hold him and he calmed down a little, but would still go into fits screaming, throwing his paci, and trying to rip the IV out. It was so pitiful. This lasted for the next half hour or so and he finally started to calm down. He was discharged around 10:30 and we headed home praying that he woudl be able to have all of his nerve function on that side of his face and that he woudl be able to rest. My parents took Braden home with them so that we could focus on Parker and get some rest. He fell asleep half way home and napped for the next 5 hours. When he woke up I was so relieved to see his mouth and cheek moving- Thank you Jesus!
The next 2 days we spent with a VERY CRANKY Parker, but by Thursday he was feeling MUCH better and he seems to feel better than he has in a long time.

We are still waiting on the results of the tests, but we go back next Monday if we haven't heard before.