Well it’s now been a week since Patrick’s surgery. Patrick is doing really well so far, considering. His incision is healing nicely. It doesn’t seem to hurt him anymore. He’ll sit and play and jump pretty much the same as if he were at home.

This is pretty amazing to me, considering that he still has staples and the area around the incisions and especially where the stoma was look bruised and ugly still. The staples will come out sometime in the next week.

He’s finished his round of post-op antibiotics, too. We were afraid he’d run a risk of infection at the surgical site because a stoma isn’t exactly a clean thing, but Patrick seems to be healing up nicely, regardless.

A few days ago, we started to see little traces of stool in Patrick’s diaper. It’s hardly anything at all, but quite miraculous for him, since his colon is so narrow right now. Pretty much all we’re waiting for here is for Patrick’s colon to have time to stretch out and start working. Until then, his stomach has to be suctioned, which is why he’s got a tube in his nose. At the rate things are going, there’s probably still another week ahead of us, though.

With as little as is there, though, Patrick’s poor little bottom is already red – despite the heavy duty diaper cream I’m using on it. This will be normal for him, though. So we’re just trying to get a good start.

So things are pretty calm here. Of course, nothing is ever 100% simple. In addition to post-op concerns, we’re watching a rash that appeared under Patrick’s central line dressing a couple of days ago to make sure it doesn’t lead to complications and infection. And… as Patrick likes to do to stump us, his heart rate has been low when he sleeps. So we’re watching, as always, to make sure that all stays well. This, for Patrick, is pretty routine… even if it does cost me some sleep.