Ryan ALMOST Has Surgery

It's been a totally crazy week. After we found out last Tuesday that Ryan did indeed have Rectal Stenosis, Jeff and I spent the remainder of the week finalizing work projects and scheduling surgery at Children's Hospital.

Over the weekend, Ryan started getting a cold. We tried so hard to keep him healthy. We called his surgeon Sunday night to let him know that Ryan had come down with some sort of cold but were given the go-ahead to head to Children's for evaluation. If Ryan was evaluated and deemed in good health, we would be moving forward as planned.

Ryan was scheduled to be admitted today. We were told to arrive by 8a because we would need to wait for an available bed at the hospital. Once we had a bed, then Ryan would need to go through a bowel prep prior to his surgery on Tuesday morning.

Jeff and I arrived at 8a. We waited 5 hours before we were called about a bed becoming available. We hung out in the lobby until lunch and then decided to go on a walk. Of course during this time is when the hospital was looking for us!

After we got Ryan's room assignment (great view, by the way, of Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood sign) the nurses and Anesthesiologist came in and gave him an evaluation. Hearing the wheezing in his chest, they got him set up for routine blood work, but also ordered a chest x-ray. It was decided that Ryan would NOT be cleared for surgery tomorrow and we began his discharge.

Because we had hotel reservations for the week, Jeff made quick cancellations. This is when we found out that his friend Pat (and Kaylyn) were trying to surprise us with a personally-delivered gift basket to our hotel room. (Of course we hadn't yet checked in) When they were going to make arrangements to have the gift dropped of at the hospital, we let them know that we were in the process of checking out. Pat and Kaylyn met us in the lobby when we were on our way out. It was nice to see friendly faces after such a long exhausting day.

We all decided to have dinner together before heading back home (Pat lives near us in La Verne and it was rush hour)

Tomorrow we will get Ryan treated by his pediatrician to knock down what ever illness he is fighting and then we will circle back with his surgeon to get re-scheduled for surgery.

I'm so tired as I write this blog.. I hope I captured everything.
All in all, Ryan was so good today. Despite the fact that he was on a clear liquid diet (no milk!) that he rejected - he only drank about 2 oz of Pedialyte all day - he was in great spirits and slept frequently throughout the day. He fussed terribly with the IV (to be expected) and with the x-ray - but the kid HATES to be restrained! As usual, he flirted with all of the nurses and stole their hearts.

Although I am not pleased with the admitting process, I am thankful that the nurses had the foresight to have him determined healthy for surgery prior to putting him through the bowel prep.

Jeff and I are bummed to have to prepare ourselves to go through this again in the future - but we know that it's best for Ryan to be as healthy as he can be with such a major surgery. I think this overall process may be harder on the two of us than it is on Ryan!!


Ryan talking (but I like to think he's "fussing" the hospital for making us wait so long!!)