Purple Pictures and Nose Surgery

Today was Epilepsy Awareness Day.

Those of us in our family who own purple clothing wore it...

Matt had to get in the picture even though he was not wearing the right color :)

I even painted my fingernails dark purple for the occasion.  

I don't often wear nail polish and when I do it's usually quite conservative or, if it's not, I'm being festive for a holiday...I guess you could count this as being festive.

Andy wore his light purple tie to work...why didn't I get a picture of that handsome guy?

It was a big day for us besides being purple day.

Josh had his third surgery in 13 months...

A week ago Josh called me from school and said he and another kid had collided at recess and he had a headache and wanted me to come get him.

I brought him home and other than a bit of a headache he seemed fine.  Later that evening at the dinner table, he said his nose kind of hurt.  Andy looked at him and saw this...

His nose was totally crooked!

I called the ENT office the next morning and they said they didn't want to see him for five days so all possible swelling would be gone.

That brings us to yesterday.  His appointment was for the afternoon but the office called in the morning and asked if we could make it earlier since the doctor needed to go into surgery during our appointment time.  Josh hadn't complained of any pain since that first night and honestly, I was wondering if it was even necessary to see a doctor anymore.  I almost just canceled it when they called but then thought I had better be safe than sorry.

When the doctor came in to see us he made a remark about Josh's obviously crooked nose and went right on to say that it was broken.  What???  There had been no bleeding, no black eyes, hardly any pain and it was broken?  He checked him out just to make sure and said we could wait until he was 17 and have it rebroken and fixed then or we could have surgery the next day and have it all taken care of.

Poor Josh got quite nervous at the word "surgery".  I don't blame him.  He's had enough of that for a while.  We talked about how this one would be much quicker and easier.  By evening he was in kind of a goofy mood and even said that this surgery might be kind of fun :)

This was his attempt at a smile.

He wasn't scheduled to go in until this afternoon so he had to go without food and drink for quite a long time.  He was a trooper though.  By the time we were shown to our room and he was changing into his hospital clothes, gone was the goofy mood and he was very nervous...almost as nervous as he was for his second foot surgery.  We talked about how this one would be fast and over before he even knew it.  The anesthesiologist said he could give him a little something to help him relax before they took him away.

I agreed.  So, even though he was still gripping my hand as they wheeled him out, he wasn't in tears and I even saw a smile before I lost sight of him.

This being the fourth surgery in 13 months for my family, I have come to enjoy the sizable length of time I have to read and relax as I wait for the doctor to come and tell me that everything went well and my child will be brought in soon.

Today, it only took half and hour before the doctor came in.  He said everything was good except there had been a little fragment of bone that didn't want to stay in place.  He kept putting it where it belonged and it kept falling back down.  So, he said since he thought Josh wouldn't appreciate him removing it, he just put some packing up in his nose to hold it in place.  Good choice :)  This will either fall out or dissolve within a few days.  He also mentioned to be sure to be consistent with the pain meds since Josh would most likely be quite sore because he had had to push pretty hard to move everything around.

Josh came back super groggy and slept for quite a while.  

When he was starting to come around, a tech walked up and said, "He looks exactly the same as he used to."  I looked at her and didn't recognize her.  I asked her who she was and she said that she used to work in the preschool class that Josh attended years ago.  She said he looked just the same only bigger.

I felt bad that I didn't remember her but she was super sweet and took care of us the rest of the time we were there.  When I have asked Josh about preschool in the past, he acts as if he doesn't remember it at all, so when he said he remembered DeeDee I questioned him.  He said, "She's the only one I remember".  

I told her that as we were leaving and she felt pretty special :)

We had only stayed an hour after Josh came back from surgery since things had gone smoothly in the recovery room.  That made a total of 3 hours in the hospital which was a nice, short visit.

The first thing Josh had said the day before when Dr. B. said he needed surgery was, "I don't want to throw up again." in a very distressed voice.  This had been about the worst part of the first couple of days of recovery from his last surgeries.  So, we made sure they put something extra in his IV to help with nausea.  It did the job and he didn't throw up once.  That was a relief to everyone ;)

Once we got home he got a little more bright eyed and bushy tailed for a couple of hours, but he zonked pretty early and is sleeping peacefully now.

Sweet Josh!  Bless his heart.  He's been through so much in the last year.  I just pray and have faith that it's strengthening his character and confidence and shaping him into the man the Lord needs him to be.