Poor Peter

It turns out we had cause for the anxiety we felt about Peter's surgery. Yesterday, I took him to our pediatrician because I knew he shouldn't be in as much pain as he was in. (I had called the urology resident Monday night because the narcotic and ibuprofen weren't cutting the pain, but she just told me, "Well, it is a really painful surgery.") I thought maybe he had developed a UTI or that maybe he had developed an ear infection from the cold he had last week. But the pediatrician looked at the site and sent me up to Primary Children's.

I quickly arranged for the other kids to be taken care of and rushed up to the urology clinic. Our good doctor was out of town, but one of his associated looked at it, and saw that because of swelling or some other blockage, he wasn't able to urinate, and the urine was actually trickling out the incision site. She tried to place a catheter while Peter writhed and screamed in pain, but wasn't able to get it past the blockage. Then another doctor came in and we went through the whole ordeal again. It was awful. I was holding Peter down and he was looking at me like, "Mom, Why are you letting them do this to me?"

Finally, they decided they would have to sedate him again. There were concerns because I had just nursed him, and because they didn't know how full his bladder or backed up his bladder was. He was gone for over an hour and we were getting really worried, but finally the doctor came back and said that after trying several different tubes and methods of placing, they were finally able to get something in. We didn't leave the hospital until 10pm, but we had a much happier Peter.

We will go back and see our doctor on Tuesday. He'll decide how long to leave the catheter in, and hopefully the swelling will have gone down enough to determine what went wrong and if anything else needs to be done. So your continued prayers and concern are appreciated.

While yesterday was such a hard day, it was really neat to see and feel the Lord watching over us. So many things happened to let us know that He was there. Like how I just knew I shouldn't bring the girls with me. And Scott just happened to have a job interview downtown at the exact same time I was going down there. I don't have a cell phone, so I left a message on his before I left and hoped I could find a phone to call him again once I knew what was going on, but everything happened so quickly, I wasn't able to make any calls. In the middle of the second unsedated try at placing the catheter, Scott walked in, and even though I hadn't even had time to think about anything, as soon as I saw him, I knew I needed him there. He said he just had a feeling he shouldn't wait for my call, but that he needed to be at the hospital, and it was perfect. They rushed him back to surgery, and I would have had no way to communicate with Scott or the babysitters.

Also, Scott's parents were attending Roots Tech downtown, so they've been staying with us. They got out of their meetings just as Peter came out of surgery. Scott went and picked them up, and they brought Scott back to the hospital, and then gathered the other kids from our friends and neighbors and put them to bed. Perfect. And when Scott left to get them, I had him take the stroller so I wouldn't have so much stuff with me, but when he came back, he brought the stroller. I was kind of annoyed because I had told him I didn't want to have so much stuff, but he said he thought it might be nice to have the stroller still. On the way out to the van, I remembered I had put the keys to the van in the stroller pocket, and if Scott had left it in the car he sent home with his parents, we would have been stranded at the hospital.

I'm just so so grateful to have the Lord show His love for us in that way, and so grateful that I have a much happier baby today. Thanks for all your prayers. We feel them working.