Surgery is over

Yes, it's finally over! It was a long day yesterday! We arrived in Boston at 7:30 AM. Jacob was very anxious for the surgery, can you blame him? We had to wait around until 9:45 for him to be taken in. I was able to go into the OR with him. Jacob didn't go to sleep to easily. It took a room full of people to hold him down for the gas! The doctor's assured me that he would have "amnesia" and wouldn't remember the struggle. Jacob was in Surgery for about two hours. My nerves were just about shot when the doctor came out to get us. He said the surgery went well. He had a few picture's to show us of what it looked inside. The synovial membrane was extremely overgrown. The tissue looked very strange. It almost looked like a pile of grapes. There were many round pieces of tissue. There were also a lot of "loose bodies" of tissue scattered in the joint. Needless to say it took quite a bit of cleaning out to remove all of the diseased tissue. The orthopedic thought that the tissue didn't look like classic Rheumatoid arthritis. He said that he believes it is, 80% sure because of the past history of him. The tissue was sent out for a biopsy.

We were at the hospital until about 4:00 yesterday. The doctor wasn't sure if they should admit him to the hospital. He felt the pain would be very difficult. Jacob also had trouble with the anesthesia he was vomiting most of the day! And there was NO amnesia from the anesthesia, he remembered everything that happened before he fell asleep!

By the time we got home Jacob was very tired. He was still pretty comfortable from the lidocaine injection. By about 8:00 the fun began! The knee was no longer numb. He had a very difficult night. I think the hospital should of kept him in. I almost in the middle of the night brought him back. He was screaming for hours!

I have kept up with the pain med around the clock since last night. If I keep it up every four hours he's not complaining much! He is such a brave boy!! He is trying to walk around a bit with the crutches too. There is a knee brace on that goes almost the entire length of his leg to immobilize it.

So far so good. Hopefully tonight will go better, I am completely exhausted! I feel like I have been up with a newborn all night.

The follow-up is on Monday with the orthopedic. Oh, I forgot to mention the wonderful and thoughtful get well cards that Jake's class made for him. They are all so sweet they made his day today!