Friday, January 2, 2009

Calling All Angels

I have one, sweet, kind and precious baby. The day he was born, while I recovered, his daddy followed him around the women’s center. It was a good thing too because he learned a lot about our little boy.

In the Nursery as the Doctors and Nurses checked out every inch of our baby they found something that wasn’t quite right. He has Hypospadias. According to the National Institutes of Health, “Hypospadias is a relatively common congenital (present from birth) defect in which the opening of the urethra is on the underside, rather than at the end, of the penis.” It occurs in 1 our of 350 male births. (While googling hypospadias to make sure I was spelling it right I also saw 1 in 100 and 1 in 200 as statistics).

When he was 3 weeks old we took our baby to a Pediatric Urologist, who told us that this condition is easily fixed, but would take surgery. During the surgery our baby would need to be put under General Anesthesia. Tiny Baby Lungs just are not ready for Anesthesia, slightly larger 6 month old lungs are. We were told that we would want to have the surgery prior to his first birthday so as to take advantage of babies short memory. We decided that we would have the surgery in January so that we could have a new year of flexible spending money i.e. so we could budget for the hit to the wallet we would take.

So now, here we are in January, my sweet little boy is going to have surgery next week. I won’t say that I am not scared, because I am. I know that they do this kind of surgery every day, that our doctor has preformed hundreds of them. But this is my Son, and he has never had surgery. The most he has ever had is shots! On top of that, I am of the opinion, that my baby is very smart. He is inquisitive. He seems to understand things. He knows where I am and wants to be near me (it melts my heart).How am I going to let him go with strangers, (strangers with knives?), he is going to be scared, he is going to need me.

I have been trying to do all that I can to prepare him, and I have been asking anyone I know with medical training what they think I should do. We have been playing with surgical masks- so that he knows that they are not scary, that people wearing masks can be fun. Hopefully the Angels he likes to talk to in the early hours of the morning will come to the hospital with us and keep him company while he waits for his surgery.

We actually might have to postpone the surgery. For the past few days the baby has had a cough and a runny nose, and last night he had a fever of 101.2. This morning he was fine at 98.6, and the nurse at this doctors office told us to watch him and see how he feels later today,(luckily our doctor is on call tomorrow if we need him). His fever has come back, not quite as high, 100.2 at 10 AM and 99.6 at Noon. He is playing and acting like his sweet normal self- as this picture I just took can prove.

I spoke to the Nurse at the Pediatric Urology Office and she said that we should do whatever we feel is necessary for him over the weekend and then on Monday, if he still has a Fever, Cough, Cold or any kind of Congestion we will have to reschedule the surgery. And so I am Calling all Angels, we need all the help and all the prayers we can get. So if you think of us while you are going about your day, if you could say a little prayer for Jared, that he will be healthy and strong and that everything will go well during his surgery next week, we would be grateful!

5 comments:

Christy said...

I'll keep him in my prayers.

Anonymous said...

Oh, Kate! Reading this entry reminded me of when our sweet little guy had to have his face reconstructed after an accident. My heart ACHES for you!!! It will be okay. It really will. JJ talked about the angels who fixed his face that night. I believe that angels are there; angels will be guiding the surgeon's hands, and things will work out. We will keep your family in our prayers!




Doesn't it give you a glimpse of what Heavenly Father went through with the Savior? Wouldn't you give ANYTHING to take baby's place, to be the one under the knife, to take away the pain?

AZ SMITHS said...

Kohler had to have surgery when he was about 1 also (to fix his circumcision). I was worried because surgery was scheduled later in the day and I couldn't feed him at all. Heavenly Father really watched over us and answered our prayers. He didn't even seem hungry that day, he was happy and calm and the surgery went really well. It was hard to let go of him when it was time, but before I knew it he was done.

The doctors and nurses are really good. I'm sure your baby will be in good hands and I know Heavenly Father will watch over you!

Rachel said...

Oh, my heart is just breaking for you. I'm tearing up just thinking "what if it was Jack". I'll be praying for you and I know the Lord will watch over your sweet little man. Good thinking with the surgical masks, btw!

Map Maker said...

You'll be in our prayers