Recovery

Well, we're eight full days out now.  It's hard to know exactly how things are shaping up, but I think we're getting there.  This whole process has been a bit odd, honestly.

Carter actually seemed to do pretty well the first couple days out.  It was apparent right away that it was helping his sleep, as he didn't snore and barely even moved.  He still says he doesn't feel a difference, but he's also still waking up for medicine (more on that in a bit) and sleeping on a crib mattress on our floor, so I think we'll have the true test once he's in his own bed, back on schedule, and properly wearing himself out with full days of school.  But the lack of snoring is shocking, and I'm so happy that's over.

He's never been a complete and total lump of sadness through this whole process, at least not since the first 20 minutes after he woke up from the surgery, but he has moments that generally last about five minutes at a time where he complains about his throat or mouth hurting.  The frustrating thing is that I can't seem to get a good look at his throat to know what's going on there.  He either can't seem to open his mouth because it hurts, or can't figure out how to best stick out his tongue in a way that I can see in.  I think there are still some scabs there, but by now he's likely starting to lose some of them.  I probably got my best look tonight and there are definitely less scabs than there were, but it's still hard to know what's normal when his throat looks so different than it used to.

The last week has been sort of torturous on the medication end.  We've gone through nearly two bottles each of liquid acetaminophen and ibuprofen thanks to alternating every three hours around the clock.  The alarm on my phone now makes me cringe.  I've worked only two days in the last week, plus one four hour stint on Sunday, so it's been nearly constant.  Night duty has been particularly challenging, as it has usually involved three rounds of waking Carter up, which is no small feat when he's now sleeping so deeply.  It was really hard the first couple nights, until I figured out that we should use the syringes so I could just get him half awake, enough to be aware enough to swallow, and shoot it in the side of his mouth.  But then, starting a couple nights ago, he really started fighting me.  Every time I tried to wake him up, he'd cry, push away, turn his head, and make it generally impossible for me to give him the medicine without forcing it.  At first I thought it was just because he was in pain, but now I think it's almost like PTSD combined with a night terror, as I don't think he really knows he's doing it, but is instinctively avoiding it.  He doesn't remember in the morning that he was upset, and I have no idea how to fix this so I'm at the point of wanting to see just how little we can medicate overnight.  We've also dealt with some random overnight crying, but we can't tell if it's pain (though sometimes it happens when he should be well-medicated) or if he's having a bad dream.  He might not be used to dreaming much if his old sleep cycle never got him to that stage, but who knows what's really happening.  Usually some back rubbing helped after a while, but it was concerning.

Overall he's seemed fine throughout the day, but at each meal he has a moment where he almost breaks down and complains that his mouth or throat hurts.  He sometimes leaves the table (which appears to be so no one sees him cry), but comes back five minutes later and seems to eat without incident.  It's odd.  I'm encouraging him to eat as much as possible because he hasn't eaten a lot over the past week.  He's had a Pediasure for the past six days, and he's had chicken noodle soup, mac and cheese, ramen noodles (a new favorite), pancakes, oatmeal (another new thing), smoothies, fruity/cocoa pebbles soaked in milk, applesauce, eggs, sausages, peanut butter sandwiches with no crusts, and Gatorade.  I had a nice supply of Jello, but it turns out he mostly just likes the lime jello, so I've been eating a lot of other flavors--which may not be a bad thing because my nails need it!  He also had a tiny piece of warm brownie with ice cream the other night.  But the quantity usually isn't large and he's not a snacker, so it's been a bit of a struggle.  He's eating, but it's a process.

He really hasn't been that miserable, which is great, but it's made it hard to measure where we are in the process or how well the medicine is working.  We were advised to keep up the medicine schedule for at least a week, which we did.  But now that he can go back to school in a couple days, I'm trying to measure how he's actually doing by stretching out the doses.  Today he's done well, but clearly eating is still a challenge.  I'm not sure how I feel about school on Friday--should I send him back and give him a small taste of getting back in the groove, or should I keep him home one more day and secure three extra days of recovery, which should be enough to ensure he's functional by Monday?  I have to work tomorrow, so I will have to rely on Craig's observations to try to figure things out by Friday morning.  Ninety percent of the time he seems like he could do it, but then he has a rough moment and I question everything...which makes me think he'll probably stay home just to be safe unless we have some breakthrough in the meantime.

It's been an interesting week, though.  He's probably been better overall than I expected but it's still been challenging in other ways.  At this point I'm just eager for him to feel better, eat normally, and be free to run and play.  His sad moments really suck and the overnight medication schedule is worse.  But I know we're in the home stretch and he'll be fine before we know it.  The long term benefits definitely outweigh what we've dealt with for the last week-plus.  I just hope we see major improvements all around very soon.

In other news, we did end up having pretty nasty winds over the weekend.  The peak gust was 69, and we had 50+ gusts for over 24 hours.  It was miserable to listen to all day and night, especially since I had to be up so many times.  Fortunately, there was shockingly little damage compared to the 81mph storm two years ago.  Only a handful of power outages in town and just a few downed trees in the areas I've driven through so far.  Buffalo got hit a bit worse.  We're just thankful for no damage--though the basketball hoop and grill are still in the garage and now my car is sitting outside in 4+ inches of snow that came in today.  Compared to the winds I don't mind the snow, and Facebook reminded me today about how soul sucking the frigid cold was in February 2015.  We only had six hours of the entire month above freezing and it was the coldest month ever in Rochester.  I wasn't working so I spent most of it either shoveling the driveway, driving to school to pick up Jacob, and holed up in the house with Carter.  That was far worse, even though our crazy weather month hasn't been a joy either.  But a few days in the 50s wouldn't hurt...assuming they don't come with winds like Sunday's 55 degrees did.  But it's almost March so hopefully some hope is in sight.  Maybe.  Suffice it to say we're all over the winter weather.  The kids desperately want to be outside, and I wouldn't mind a good run.  We've just hit that point of the winter.  But Carter's birthday party is in sight and hopefully March goes quickly after it.  

With almost everything right now, I know things are just temporary and one day at a time we'll get to where we need to be--from spring weather to a healthy kid to Craig's job situation.  One day at a time.  One breath at a time.