My Champ

We arrived in the morning at 5am and passed Soliz off to the doctors at 7:30 am and then waited until 3pm to see him again. I could feel the high tension of the doctors anticipating this major surgery that my son was about to endure. Soliz was in amazing spirits during that waiting time. I was so nervous to have to wake him up so early in the morning (4:30am) to bath him one last time but he never fussed once. He just looked into the eyes of all the nurses and doctors; he seemed so joyful.

The surgery went very well according to the neurosurgeon. He was very upbeat and positive when I spoke with him while in the waiting room. Somehow we skipped being able to see Soliz in the recovery room and by the time we got to see him he was already in the ICU. Going back to see him for the first time was the hard part. When we got into the room the doctor informed us right away that Soliz’ rib had been punctured while “harvesting” his rib. (They used a piece of his rib to rebuild the missing part of his vertebrae). So we immediately had to leave the room while they placed a needle and then a tube his lung to help re-inflate it. I guess this is a procedure that happens frequently in the ICU and once they take the tube out all should be well with his rib but it is yet another thing that Soliz has to endure. His doctor admitted that in the 100s of “rib harvestings” he’s done this has only happened a couple of times. Somehow Soliz seems to be in the 1% club.

Last night was one of our hardest ever. Our nurse spent the entire night trying to figure out the best cocktail of pain medications for Soliz. He has a very high pain tolerance and somehow this translates to his body not responding to pain medications very well. I was told that if another child were on the amount of drugs that he is on they would be hard to rouse, as if in an induced coma. Not Soliz. At the moment he is on a Precedex drip, Tylenol as needed, Valium every 4 hours, Fentanyl every 2 hours and Zofran as needed. Even with this he seems to have waves of pain coming through is body. I was told tonight should be an easier night. This won’t be forever.