Benjamin update

I'm at the hospital with Benjamin this evening. Sean stayed last night and said Benjamin had a decent night. He woke up at about 2 a.m. and they got him some pain medicine. Then he went back to sleep for the rest of the night. The bonus is that they didn't have to draw labs at 5 a.m. That always makes for a rude awakening.

Yesterday was a rough day for him. We brought the kids up in the morning and Benjamin didn't want anything to do with them. Alex was trying so hard to make Benjamin smile, but Benjamin wanted none of it. After the kids left, Benjamin seemed to be getting more and more uncomfortable. We noticed that his catheter had stopped draining and the nurse tried to clear it. She also called Dr. Cortez who said he would be in to check him as well. By about 1 p.m., Benjamin was throwing up. That's when Dr. Cortez made his rounds, so he saw how yucky Benjamin was feeling. Once they were able to clear the plug in his catheter over 180 ccs drained out in an hour (he's been averaging 50 cc per hour). His bladder only holds 50 ccs (less than 2 oz) so that means a great deal of fluid was probably backing up in his newly repaired ureters. Dr. Cortez said that definitely would have been enough to make him feel nauseated and eventually throw up. After that, he perked up quite a bit and seemed much happier.

Today, Benjamin was transferred to the regular surgical floor, so that's good progress. He's down to his IV, a pulse ox monitor, and his catheter. Currently, they are trying to get rid of his urinary tract infection, so he'll be here for a couple more days to receive IV antibiotics. Dr. Cortez thinks Benjamin will likely be discharged on Tuesday, assuming no other complications. Tomorrow, he will have a chest Xray and a sonogram just to check things over and give them a good baseline.

He took a good nap this afternoon while Sean was here with him. Since then, he's been watching some Elmo and got to sit on Mommy's lap. Now we'll just hope for another good night.

Alex and a friend went kiteflying with Grandpa this afternoon. Grandpa bought a stunt kite last time he was here, so they were anxious to go out while the wind was good. Grandpa says it must be a tough kite because it took some pretty hard nosedives, but both boys got to fly it.

Emma went to her first cookie booth today. We sat outside Walgreens for 2 hours and sold quite a few cookies. Each girl sold about 25 boxes. I'm sure booths later on won't sell as many, but it was a good first day. She was so excited about it and got quite brave about asking people if they would like to buy cookies.

I guess that's about it for now. Enjoy the holiday tomorrow. Thanks for all the love.

Julie