November 1st

It's been a few days and I haven't had time to update until now....Benjamin's last surgery went great on Thursday. He is completely closed up now. He did wind up having another pleural effusion issue that morning, so they bumped his surgery up to an earlier time in the day due to this. They also inserted a chest tube to be able to drain off the excess fluid that has been accumulating in the chest. After the surgery for the first day or so he was definitely more touchy again and required more medication to help out with the pain. I just got off the phone with his nurse, Beth, and she said he made some good baby steps in the right direction last night. He required less pain meds and his fluid from his chest started to decrease in amount. He had his catheter removed this week, so now he just gets his diaper changed like you would normally do. He's still producing a good amount of urine and making his own stool which is great because it means his intestines are functioning pretty well. They may have to take the art line out of his heel and resort to heel sticks for his blood gas work now, as the line isn't reading well and is not allowing them to access the blood required for the blood work anymore, (this is pretty typical, they don't last too long). I can't imagine getting poked with a needle in the heel would be very comfortable, but at least it's one more line out of him and hopefully they can make sure he gets it done after a dose of his normal pain meds.
Yesterday, I talked with one of his nurses, Mindy....I asked if she thought maybe in the next month, as long as he is improving, if we would be able to hold him for the first time. She thought that would be ok coming up soon, but obviously Dr. Saito would be the one to clear this. Obviously, Dave and I do not want to do anything that would make it harder for Ben, but it has been so hard not getting to hold him for this long! That will be a wonderful day!
Well, we are off to church for the day, and to spend some time with our kids. Hopefully, we can update some pictures today. God Bless.