Monday update

I'm updating this from home, unfortunately Jon and Jack aren't with us. I came home tonight to get the 2 little ones home in their own beds. Max has preschool tomorrow and then is headed to a friend's house. Amelia and I are heading back to the hospital in the morning. Hopefully, we'll be bringing Jon and Jack home with us. If not, Jon and Mia will be coming home tomorrow night and I'll stay with Jack.

What a roller coaster this is. Pain management-wise we are doing okay. He's definitely in pain, but for the most part it's tolerable. Our biggest hurdle right now is emotionally the kid is just spent. Literally, he just can not settle down. I think he's hurting, exhausted, scared, and so drugged it's confusing. The moment someone opens the door to the room, he just starts shrieking....uncontrollably. He doesn't want anyone near him, I don't blame him at all. We wanted to get him up in a wheelchair today and to take a shower. Neither happened. He was not going to cooperate so we all decided it wasn't worth it. We did get him in a recliner sitting on my lap. He screamed the entire time we were doing it, but finally relaxed and slept on me for a couple of hours.

The child life specialists have done their best to try to help us out. They sent a therapy dog and a therapy rabbit...neither of which impressed Jack much. He did get a wooden model care to assemble and paint. He had fun putting the glue on for Jon and tried his best to paint a "rainbow car". His pain medication is so strong, he is having troubles focusing visually on things. Coloring, video games, reading....all of this favorite things and right now he can't do them.

Obviously, this has thrown us off. Jack is such an easy going kid, we never expected him to react this way. It's totally understandable, we are just unprepared for how to handle it. I'm hoping that once he's home he can relax.

I talked to his surgeon, Dr. Kogan today. I saw her in the hallway and burst into tears. She was so reassuring and told me that everything from the pain to his behavior was totally normal. She said this is one of the most painful processes for someone to endure. She said when she rounds on her teenaged patients after the surgery, they scream at her and tell her to cut their leg off. Within 2 weeks, they're almost back to themselves...within a month, they're good as new. She promised me that the kids always bounce back from this and recover, however, most parents are left scarred. She told me that once he's weight-bearing (~6 weeks from now) we need to celebrate....and celebrate BIG. We're planning a trip to Disney in November, but I'm starting to think we may be planning to go sooner. Like in 6 weeks and 1 day from now :)