Update on Smiles

After the surgery on Monday, Smiles was groggy and tired most of the day, but he was back to his regular self by Tuesday - which was good to see!

Today, I was able to take the bandage off of his incision, and then next week he has his post-op appt. I am very thankful that he has not been bothered by the bandage at all this week - he only touched it a couple of times yesterday, but did not try to take it off...I think that it would have been too hard for him to do on his own anyway. You see, his incision was actually covered with gauze and then some type of plastic that "sticks" to his ear, skin, and hair!!! I was not really looking forward to taking this off of him, so I waited to do it tonight, when Dawson could help me out...and I am SOOO glad that I did!

The plastic stuff was sort of like tape, meaning that it was sticky...and it was on some of his hair!!! (BTW - they had to trim his hair a little bit when they did his surgery and they put it in a little plastic bag and gave it to me! I thought that was so sweet! I guess they could tell that he has not had an official first haircut yet!).

I thought that the sticky plastic "tape" would come off easily...boy, was I wrong! Dawson first tried to hold him in a sitting position on his lap while I tried to peel the tape off - that was not working. We tried having Dawson hug Smiles - that did not work. So, finally, we had Smiles laying belly down on Dawson's lap, while I tried to peel this "tape" off. There was a lot of crying and a lot of praying - and Brady was also telling Smiles, "It's okay" and trying to comfort him. So sweet.

I think that the worst part of taking this "tape" off was when I got to the hair. I almost decided to get the scissors out and just cut the tape off (that would have looked "great!"). However, I feel that the Holy Spirit reminded me of how I would get something out of my hair with as little pain as possible. So, I held his hair down with my fingers, so the roots were not being pulled, and then gently pulled the tape away and then I would move my fingers up to the next spot and I would repeat what I did. It went somewhat quickly and the crying did not increase, it stayed at the same level. Then, the gauze seemed to be a little stuck to the incision!!! So, I got a wet wash cloth and water helped to "unstick" it! AHHHHH!

It was a little stressful to me, but I was so glad when it was done, and after I rocked Smiles for a little bit and snuggled with him, I eventually got some smiles from him - it made me smile.

The incision area looks great to me! So, I guess now I just need to keep it clean and dry and we will see the doctor next Wednesday!