Super Colin!

Success! The surgery couldn't have gone better. The double hernia repair and draining of a hydrocele took about 45 minutes. The man parts were left intact so Colin can someday have little Colin's of his own :-) It wasn't completely without incident however! Mom and I were there when they brought him back up from the OR. Because he was under general anesthesia, they had to intubate and put him on a ventilator. Well, as you can imagine, it can be rough going just coming out of the anesthesia, and that's what happened with Colin. He was initially breathing on his own, but as they were getting him settled, he started dropping his breathing and heart rates. Continuously for a couple minutes. He kept having to be stimulated, and as we were doing that, the nurse grabbed an oxygen mask to bring him to. What added to the scare was I actually witnessed Colin slowly close his eyes and then he crashed. So, in my head, I was thinking this was something a little different than before. I was rattled inside, but kept a cool exterior. For Mom's sake, and mine. But he stabilized eventually.
Colin held my hand for several hours after surgery. We were there to calm him as he continued coming out of his deep sleep. He would jostle around which would cause him pain and he would cry. We'd give him his paci and rub his head. He was given pain meds, but they didn't fully work. I guess some discomfort is to be expected, but still. At one point, Colin started wailing loudly. It took me a second to realize he had grabbed ahold of the IV line in his head and was pulling on it with all his might! Ouch! No wonder he was screaming! I quickly grabbed his hand and that boy had a death grip on the line! I literally had to pry his fingers, one-by-one, from it. He's got some serious power. Really.
As some of these uncomfortable moments passed, and as the day and night progressed, Colin powered through it all and is recovering extremely well. In fact, he's already back up to his presurgical feeding levels: 2 ounces! He's out of his bed warmer and into his crib. He's off of his oxygen. The only thing left are his wound sites (the dressings will fall off in the next several days) and to get his head IV removed which should happen sometime today. They aren't utilizing the IV line (no fluids) but they keep it in as a precaution - to ward off evil spirits, if you will :-) No evil spirits will attack our boy. He'll beat them up and take names! Go, Colin, go! We're so proud of you, little man!