Coming home!

The surgery is over. Everything went smoothly so now we'll just have to wait and see if it worked. Thanks for remembering us! We registered in the hospital about 4 p.m. then they took Archie to his room. He and Grace played for a few minutes together in the bed and then the trauma began.

As soon as the nurses came and got him for weight, measurement and clothes changing, he started going ballistic. Thankfully, after awhile I had the idea to take him to the activity area where he found a little car and some little friends to drive with. Archie spoke to all the foreign looking ones in English which pretty much worked. However, he was really confused when he spoke Mandarin to the Hong Kong ones and they didn't understand. (I think we all learned the word for car in Cantonese before the night was over.)

At around 7:30 the nurses came and got him for the surgery and it was all over again. I think all his memories from his hospital experience last July were coming back to him. Surprisingly enough, the nurses weren't used to seeing kids being taken away for surgery that upset. He was thrashing around so badly we could hardly hold him. They wanted to put surgery socks on him and you'd have thought he was being tortured. They didn't even put in the IV until after he was asleep!

They let me go into the OR and hold him while the doctor anethesized him with a mask. Then, we left and got some dinner in the cafeteria. Around 9:30 the nurse came and got us. The doctor said everything had gone well and that Archie would probably wake up screaming and disoriented soon. I guess he had gotten all of his screaming out of his system earlier, though, because he never woke up. I left the hospital slightly after 10 once Archie was back in his room to take Grace back to our apartment. Hunt said he stirred around 12:50 and then a few more times through the night but never for more than a couple seconds. Thankfully, we were spared the second round of screams!

Hunt just called me from the hospital (9:30 a.m.). They have seen the doctor. He said Archie's eyes are perfectly straight right now (normal for right after surgery) but it will take awhile before we know if the brain picks it up. He still has to wear his glasses full-time, but we can take at least a one week break from the patch until he sees the doctor again. They'll be heading home soon. I think he'll want to sleep a lot today, but hopefully we can go to the park and do some other fun stuff, too!