Week after surgery

Well it's been a long trying week. The best part is Tyler is doing great! He was fully recovered from the ordeal by Monday. (First pix here is Monday running around the yard) It's been so heart warming to see him eat and drink like a normal 2 year old (yeah, we are a month away from his 2 year birthday). I swear he's gained at least half if not more of the weight he's lost over the last couple of months. He feels heavy and solid again and I can't see his ribs quite as well now. He lost about 1.75 pounds since February. Tyler is also keeping us on our toes. Running around climbing EVERYTHING! He's refusing to sit in his booster seat with straps now. We can not get him in it since we've come home. If we force the issue he refuses to eat and sits there screaming and trying to get out. So he now sits at the table like a big boy eating at a giant's house. His little chin barely clears the top of the table. But, he's happy and is eating rather well. He's fallen a couple times off the chair trying to get down, but most of the time he asks for help now. The other big change is napping, or the lack there of on some days. He's starting to not nap on days that there isn't a whole lot going on. If he does nap, it's later in the afternoon and he is grumpy when he gets up now. I am lucky that it is past the 18 month mark, (Rachel gave up naps at 18 months) but I would have like a non cold turkey way. There are few of the nuances that drastically changed after the new shunt was installed. Like the two previous surgeries, this one also has it's share of learning new patterns and schedules of Tyler. His personality is quite intact. These changes are not personality changes so much as to routine changes.

Rachel is taking this in stride but also letting us know she isn't thrilled with what happened. She was at school Friday morning. She came home to having a bag packed and being told "You are going to stay with grandma/pa for a day or two. Tyler needs to go to the hospital". When we came to pick her up, she rightly so gave us the cold shoulder. This past week she's been moody. I truly hope she can understand some of this and that we would do the same for her (let's hope we don't need to ever).

Over the last day or so, I've noticed the hair surrounding the incision site to be crusty. Like you've got applesauce in your hair type of crusty. Behind the incision, there is Tyler's normal post surgery build up of fluid making a rather large bump, his shunt bump. One of the concerns is that crusty hair is due to a leaking incision. The trick is, we can't tell if it's normal wound seepage or if it's spinal fluid. We've been talking with neurosurgery all afternoon about it, trying to determine if it's a constant leak or sporadic leak. We left it tonight with seeing what happens over night. He has no fever, no loss of appetite, and is sleeping so infection hasn't set in. If there is some fluid in the morning, we will be heading to Lebanon to rule out spinal cord fluid. If it is spinal cord fluid, they will mostly likely have to put in another couple of stitches and another round of antibiotics. Most likely an over night because the meds would be IV. The warm fuzzy part of all this is, the surgeon is confident enough in our abilities of knowing Tyler and having a clue about what to look for, we don't have to rush up there tonight. So fingers crossed that his head stops leaking.