Tag Archives: Surgery

The Damage

Posted on by
19

DSC_0026

24 hours post-surgery

I promise, the Frankenstein-ish pictures I’ve been posting lately are not a sign of what’s to come on the blog in 2013! But I wanted to document this because frankly, I was not prepared for what the incision would look like and I’m more than a bit curious to see how it looks in a week, a month, 6 months from now… I may have called my mom freaking out a bit when I first took off the bandage. I’m pretty sure my bikini-wearing days are over, no? Oh, maybe not. I do have one very high-waisted retro-style bikini bottom that just might cover this silly smiley face scar. I am trying not to be vain. After 3 pregnancies, I was able to avoid c-section scars and major stretch marks, so really I consider myself lucky?

Anyway, I’m feeling much better, and despite my strong aversion to taking my pain meds (is anyone else kind of freaked out by the way Percocet makes you feel?) I have been good about lying around in bed reading blogs and thinking up ideas for the boys’ new shared room. We are considering bunk beds and moving them to one of the bigger rooms. I think a major shift is in store for our home. It’s good to reconfigure now and then. NOT that I’ll be moving furniture anytime soon, but… you know.

Update

Posted on by
13

The surgery went well. Thank you for all your kind words– I am in more pain than I had anticipated, so won’t be posting for a day or two. But Andrew has been amazing. From helping me up the stairs and making me comfortable, taking time out of an already busy time of year for him to play with and read to and take care of his boys on the solo, comforting a baby who wants his mama to pick him up and a little boy who has been crying all afternoon about one thing or another… it has not been easy. Thank you doesn’t cut it.

Thank you, also to Elisa and Jen, for taking the boys today. Hoping we’ll be up and running in a couple of days. I will tell you all about it (if you want to know)!

Weekend Shenanigans

Posted on by
23

DSC_0025DSC_0013

This weekend was kind of a bust. Since Thursday morning I have felt like death warmed over, and it only seemed to get worse as the weekend carried on. Luckily Andrew took the boys all day Saturday and all morning Sunday so I could sleep and try to recuperate. I am scheduled for surgery tomorrow morning (nothing major, just to repair an umbilical hernia left-over from my pregnancy with Emil) unless a blood test/check-up this morning proves I am too sick for anesthesia. As much as I dread the surgery, what I dread more is putting it off any longer.

My anxiety about things that could go wrong have been dominating my thoughts lately– the what if’s and all the horror stories Andrew would bring home after researching patient safety years ago are on the forefront of my mind. And my disdain for hospitals… none of it helps. But I know it needs to be taken care of and I know it is a pretty straightforward procedure, so I’m trying trying trying to convince myself it is no big deal.

DSC_0031DSC_0022DSC_0047DSC_0052

So, today, I really have nothing for you except these pictures from our weekend. And tomorrow, while I am under-the-knife (yikes!), I will schedule a few videos I took this weekend of the boys doing funny things. I will also be sure to have Andrew update the blog with the good news of my survival, ha, ha!

DSC_0021DSC_0055

Happy Monday, and wish me luck (on the physical, as well as mental front)!

Random Stuff

Posted on by
1

Milo is healing nicely. The only indication of anything out of the ordinary is his trouble sleeping at night. Of course. He had been doing really well (for Milo) at night before the surgery, but now he is waking up every two hours screaming. In a couple of nights, when I’m sure he’s not waking up because of pain, he will be crying it out for a while. But for now, I’m still keeping a close eye on him just in case.

Milo outside the Rock Creek Park Stables playing in the leaves 

The weather around here has been incredible. We were lucky to receive the best part over the weekend. On Sunday, it was sunny and reached the upper 60′s!!! It is early February, right? Not complaining here. We took advantage by walking up to the stables yesterday and watching the horses run. Some of the girls let Milo pet their horses while they groomed them. He has been neighing at random times ever since.
Milo also had a great time with a few of the neighborhood kids on both days. We got a lot of use out of the wagon again, which I can see will be a popular toy this summer. Since our neighbors two doors down have a two-seater wagon as well, the kids took part in inventing many dangerous wagon-racing games, often involving a transfer from one wagon to the other mid-race. Milo was on the sidelines for those, obviously!
But it is nice to see how the older kids are gentle with Milo, and always give him a turn too. The challenge is that most of the neighborhood kids are at least a year or two older than Milo, but Milo still wants to do what they are doing. Like have a snowball fight. Or play football. Or ride his scooter in the street. Yikes.

Other random stuff:
Milo is obsessed with wearing the broken sunglasses Gram got for him a while back. Only he puts them on like this:
… and don’t try to fix them. That, according to Milo, is how they are supposed to be worn. I had to fight them away from him both yesterday and today for naptime.

He is one strange cookie. Last night Andrew and I were making dinner in the kitchen and we kept hearing “Ohhhh, Noooo!” in a very exaggerated tone coming from the living room. We peered in to find Milo lying on his back amidst a bunch of alphabet cards just staring up at the ceiling. Interesting. So we went back into the kitchen. “Ohhhh, Noooooooo!” again. We peek in, and he is running “carefully” across the cards TRYING to slip again. He slips, lays there on his back, staring at the ceiling, and says dramatically, “ohhh, nooo.” Again. And again. And again. For at least 20 minutes Milo occupied himself by slipping, falling, and “oh no-ing” while Andrew and I watched, cracking up as quietly as possible as we peeked around the corner. Is this what our parents did with us when we did cooky things? I can definitely picture it.

And the last random tidbit I have is a picture of Milo with my aunt and uncle, Barb and Steve, who came to visit us a couple of weeks ago. They stayed one day and night on their way down to Florida for a reprieve from the harsh Massachusetts winter. Milo LOVED hanging out with them, and was quite worried whenever one of them left the room or went upstairs to use the restroom! He has a bit of trouble with good-bye’s. We wish Barb and Steve could have stayed a little longer. It was great to catch up and share stories. But we will be seeing them again soon in March!

Reading with great aunt Barb & great uncle Steve
Do you like the face Milo is making? Lately that tongue is always sticking out! 

Stay tuned for more exciting antics of Milo Knight…

A-Okay

Posted on by
3

Milo is doing fantastic!

It is amazing how much better our experience was this time around… whether it was because we waited an hour and a half rather than four hours in the waiting room, or because Milo wasn’t hungry because it was only 6am when we arrived at the hospital, or maybe because we knew what to expect, or that Milo is 3 months older and seemed to handle this so much better. Whatever it was, together or alone, it was smooth sailing with Milo’s surgery and recovery.

Watching him now, you would never guess that he had invasive surgery just this morning. He napped most of the car ride home and was easily transferred to his crib, where he slept off the remainder of his anesthesia hang-over and woke up at 1:00 happily smiling and babbling in his crib. He then devoured an entire cheese sandwich, some crackers, and fruit salad, along with another plug of apple juice, and has been playing happily in our living room ever since. No delay this time in walking around or even running, which I made him stop doing! Crazy.

So thanks for all your nice emails, phone calls, and messages about the little guy. He is doing great, and so are we, knowing that this is the last surgery and we can put this whole ordeal behind us!

Just an Update

Posted on by
9

No funny pictures today, unfortunately! But the day is not over…

Just a note that Milo’s second and last surgery is Friday morning. We scheduled the first available slot so there’s no chance we will be in the waiting room for 4 hours this time, and because it is the first surgery of the day, we only have to arrive an hour and a half early as opposed to two hours early. Bonus! That means we need to leave our house at around 5:00am. Which isn’t that bad, considering we will all be awake at that hour anyway, and maybe Milo will fall asleep in the car on the way there (a girl can dream, can’t she?). So… wish us luck!

I am having a reality check today, on my 29th birthday. Yes, I realized it when I was at the gym on the elliptical machine entering all the data. You know, type of workout, duration, weight…. age. Aaaahhhh! Just kidding. Being 29 is great. I have a beautiful son, a wonderful husband, I live in a neighborhood I love with friendly people in a city that is experiencing such incredible history right now…. and I get to stay at home and enjoy it all every day.

Tonight Andrew is taking me out to dinner and I’m embarrassed to say that this will be our first date since before Milo was born! We’ve been out with other couples and for company dinners, but never just the two of us. It’s going to be great! I’m already anticipating how nice it will be not to cook. I think I’ll wear those new shoes….

Hanging with the Bum

Posted on by
9


Sorry for being blog-delinquent! I have been having a lot of trouble with my computer for the past four days, and it’s not allowing me to upload videos and some pictures. As soon as I figure out what the problem is, I have some very funny videos of Milo. Until then, please enjoy these pictures from last weekend. Andrew was out of town teaching an executive MBA class in San Francisco until Saturday night, but Sunday we spent the day with Cat and Garriy. We went to brunch, walked around Eastern Market, then hung out at Garriy and Cat’s, where we watched a peculiar Russian cartoon about a hedgehog in the fog. Very interesting, as you can see!

We are looking forward to a quiet Thanksgiving… just the three of us, then Friday my sister Krista and her husband Eric, and Milo’s cousin Charlie are coming to hang out for the day & spend the night. It will be great to have family around!

Milo is such a funny character now. He is such a social butterfly, and smiles all the time. Whenever we go anywhere, he waves and says “Hi!” to strangers with a big grin on his face. It’s so sweet to see him interact and just love people in general. This weekend, my friend Kathy came to visit from Philadelphia. Milo loved her instantly, and even cried when she went upstairs once! Poor little bum. He gets so attached to the pretty ladies.

Not much news to report. It’s been freezing cold here, so there is little fun to be had outside. I still try to take Milo out at least for a little while every day, but he won’t keep gloves on, and constantly pulls his hat off, so it’s a struggle to keep him warm enough! He is healing well, though. We just had a doctor’s appointment on Friday that took all of two seconds before the surgeon told us to be on our way, an hour drive back and forth for just a simple bandage removal that I could have done myself. Oh, well. I guess I would feel differently if there had been something wrong! The next surgery isn’t until after the new year, so we have some time to enjoy the holidays before that big fiasco again.

Oh, and we are thinking about renting our house out for the inauguration. Apparently, people are getting some pretty good offers for a three-day rental since all hotels are booked in an hour & 1/2 radius from DC. What do you think? Creepy, or a great way to make some easy money?

He’s Alive!

Posted on by
4

Here is proof that Milo is alive and well… pictures taken yesterday afternoon. Yesterday Milo surprised us with his quick recovery. In the morning, he didn’t even want to walk. By noon, he was running around outside with only a little Children’s Motrin in his system. As told by the nurses, if Milo is hurting, he will let us know. So we took his lead, encouraging him to take it easy, but also letting him do generally what he usually does… except ride his bike and tackle Proudie, of course.

There’s that smile!

Cut and Pasted

Posted on by
4

First of all, thanks for all the emails and phone calls of support. It really feels nice to know that so many people love Milo and were thinking of him.

Obviously, everything went fine. But as I have already told a few of you, neither of us were at all prepared for how hard this day would be. I have a new respect for parents whose kids are in and out of the hospital for surgery or serious illness. While we were there, we saw so many kids who were so much worse off than our little guy, and who obviously spent quite a bit of time in the hospital. It made me appreciate good health and not take it for granted.

But this day was hard, hard, hard. No one tells you how hard it is when your hungry little boy looks up at you and says “cheese?” and you can’t feed him anything even though he has had nothing to eat in 18 hours (surgery was delayed 2 hours, so we were in the hospital for 4 hours trying to distract Milo from his sleepiness and hunger). No one can prepare you for how you will feel seeing your baby hooked up to machines in a big hospital bed, or how totally helpless you feel when he awakens disoriented, upset, and in pain, and to realize that you have absolutely no idea how to comfort him at this moment. The strangest thing is to realize that your baby really does have his own personality, and to realize this because it dawns on you that he is just not himself.

Okay, sorry for being depressing. It really was a hard day. Andrew went with Milo this time into the operating room while he was being put to sleep. I will go next time, although I’m not so sure it sounds like a lot of fun after seeing Andrew’s face coming out of there! But I have plenty of time to prepare for that moment. The next (and final) surgery won’t be until after the new year.

Any light stories from today? Well, Milo charmed the pants off the nurses and other parents and kids in the hospital, especially when around hour 3, I took him into the hallway to burn off some steam when we realized we were not going anywhere anytime soon. Please imagine a very small young Bum in stripey socks and a hospital gown jimmy-rigged to fit him because it was WAY too big (and pink, to boot) running down the hallway waving at everyone he passed. So, so cute. At least he brought a smile to some sad faces. Well, here. You don’t have to imagine too hard.


Milo is sound asleep (and heavily drugged) in his crib right now, as I plan on a long night of paranoid check-ins to make sure he is still alive. Tomorrow we will take it easy and enjoy lots of Elmo and books and snuggles.

Clark’s Elioak Farm

Posted on by
5
Two little elves sitting on a toadstool

On Monday, Mary and I took the boys to Clark’s Elioak Farm, which boasts over 50-year-old life-sized fairytale displays from our parents’ childhood time (my mom even remembers going there as a kid). They have worked to restore the displays from the Enchanted Forest, in addition to providing a petting zoo and huge rainbow slide to play on. Unfortunately I have no pictures from the petting zoo area. I was too busy preventing Milo from collecting chicken eggs from under the chickens. But enjoy the rest of the pictures! It was a very cool place for little kids, plus they had some crazy blue jay colony on the edge of the woods that I found… enchanting. Wah, wah.
The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe… though we couldn’t find the actual old woman anywhere… can you blame her with all those crazy kids?The Crooked Man with the Crooked House

There appears to be more wrong with the crooked man than his crookedness

The Dish running away with the Spoon

Jack and Jill…
Milo was very concerned about Jack falling down like that

Snow White and her dwarfs- check out Dopey having a bad dream or something
Annie, I took this picture for you!
Milo fearlessly “booping” a goat

We are really enjoying living in DC. There is so much to explore, and everything is free! I know I have said it before, but it really makes life easier when you can come and go as you please and not feel like you have to stay somewhere all day in order to get your money’s worth. That kind of mentality is a recipe for disaster for any toddler. Talk about over-stimulation! So we have been enjoying the zoo in the afternoons (during the week there is no one there, plus the bored zookeepers will talk to you and feed the animals snacks so you can see their huge teeth- I’m talking about the 5400-lb male hippo here, very cool), the Building Museum on some rainy mornings, and there’s still so much to see and do!This afternoon we plan to take it easy, though. Tomorrow is the first of two surgeries for Milo. And though it is relatively minor and outpatient, I am still extremely nervous. Mainly it is the anesthesia that freaks me out. Seeing Milo all hooked up to tubes and wires and machines is probably going to be a test of my courage. But I might not even see that tomorrow. Andrew and I decided to flip a coin to see who will accompany Milo while they put him to sleep. Then next time, we will switch. I am not even sure which side I would rather be on, but I’m sure I’ll be a wreck either way. He’s still my little baby!

Also, on the less scary end of things, I am a little worried about the drive to and from Johns Hopkins, as Milo will probably be STARVING by the time we get there at 10am tomorrow. He won’t be allowed to eat or even drink milk until after the surgery, which means he will be going about 19 hours without food! He can drink clear liquids up until 4 hours before surgery, but something tells me he might want more than juice at that point. That, combined with Milo’s contempt for the car seat, might make for quite a trip. So… wish us luck on that one, too.

Alright… I’ll keep you updated. Until Saturday….