Hello Friends:
Alec continues to make good recovery progress. All of his chest tubes are out, and we have him up walking a bit each day, and playing in the playroom. We think that we'll be released fairly soon -- probably in a day or two. Medical teams make these decisions, and they're just waiting for a bit more progress to give their blessing for us to go home. Alec continues to be up and down emotionally during the day. He has lots of happy periods punctuated by sad period with tears. He's become a bit afraid of medical procedures, so even something like removing a band-aid is met with great fear and feelings of betrayal. He's pretty much a textbook case for this kind of surgery and recovery, and we're very thankful for how well he's doing. We learned how to do CPR on a child today (it's not gentle either!), and we received instructions for how to care for him once we get home. Once home, we have a 4-6 week period during which we can't take him places (school, church, out clubbing, etc.), and any family members who do venture beyond the home (to school or work) have to change clothes, and wash up immediately upon entering the house. Staying home, not swimming, and so on will be hard for Alec. They told us not to put any over-the-counter preparations on his incision line... that most of those actually inhibit healing. Who knew! But, despite all of these initial restrictions, this was a really successful surgery, and should drastically improve his quality of life and the length of his life.
Thanks for reading...
Matt & Joan Vos
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