Recovery

This is such a roller coaster.  All of my days have run together so I really can't keep track of what happened when. Leeland had an allergic reaction to the morphine and antibiotic. They made him itch like crazy and before we figured out what was wrong he basically scratched his face off. The new antibiotic he's on caused some digestive issues if your know what I mean, so we've been dealing with tiny explosions. He is allergic to it too, so he's getting Benadryl every six hours that pretty much knocks him out.   Yesterday was a good day and he was awake for about an hour, wanting to interact and play with toys.  We are clinging to those moments. We've had a couple of scary moments with some abnormal jerking, oxygen drops and he started throwing up this morning, but then opened his eyes and started playing a minute ago. We really don't know what we're going to get from one moment to the next.  The  highs and lows of this whole journey are impossible to explain. We were feeling really discouraged this morning when Leeland began throwing up and had an oxygen drop/ choking episode.  His surgeon came by and removed the head dressings. He thought everything looked good but said that he did have quite a bit of fluid under the skin. He recommended a CT scan to make sure there wasn't any sort of blockage in the drain. Once he got results back, he personally came in to tell us that everything looked great and they would be removing the drain later today. Every time we talk to him, Kyle and I both feel so reassured. He is just so confident that the surgery was a success and he thinks all of these little setbacks are just stumbling blocks but in no way define Leeland's eventual outcome.  We are taking his word for it! Just as I was typing this, one of the dr.s came by to remove the drain. Kyle decided that was a good time for him to step out and get some coffee.  If you are grossed out, probably the best time to quit reading too. He pulled the drain out and I'll just say that thing is A LOT thicker than an epidural and it was about 2 inches onto his skull. There was already a stitch put in during the surgery that they could immediately close when the drain was removed but he was leaking too much fluid so they had to put in another stitch.  Between trhe throw up , yucky diapers and spinal fluid the poor little guy can't have much left in him. Not surprisingly though, he hardly cried. He really is the toughest  baby around. One of these days we're going to show him these pictures of  "that time you had brain surgery" and totally rocked it.