Working back toward normal

The last week and a half has been wonderful, challenging and scary depending on the moment. We came home from the hospital last weekend and were thrilled to be home, but having Torsten away from doctors and nurses was also a little overwhelming. We were and have been closely watching his incision, keeping track of his bladder and bowel function, keeping a notebook with the times he's been given any of the 5 medications he's on and were taking his temperature every couple of hours.

For the most part, Torsten has done great. He's been such a trooper and has not cried much, but instead has mostly picked up his normal activities where he left off. However, we started noticing a low-grade and lingering fever early last week, which wouldn't usually be concerning, but was strange since we've had Torsten on fever-reducing pain relievers around the clock. Around the same time, his incision started looking a little rough. It has re-opened slightly a couple of times at night, but has closed and dried back up by morning. We've been in very close contact with the neurosurgeon's office and have been given the guidelines for when to go to the ER, which we will avoid if at all possible. We're just being extra cautious until Thursday, when we return to the surgeon's office for a check-up.

For now, we've stopped giving Torsten sponge baths, since they seem to severely irritate his incision and hurt him more than they're worth. He'll be getting a good wipe-down every night, but nothing more. We've also stopped trying to cut back on his pain meds for the moment and are keeping him on ibuprofen and tylenol during the day and hydrocodone at night. Torsten was in a lot of pain two nights ago - we couldn't lay him on his back and had a hard time finding a way to get him comfortable. It was terrible to see him so upset and hurting so badly, so we're not going to push him quite yet.

All things considered though, Torsten is truly doing fantastic. He's such a happy baby that we have to remind ourselves that he had fairly major surgery less than two weeks ago. We're looking so forward to him being completely healed and putting this whole ordeal behind us. We know it's coming soon and are very ready! Thanks again to everyone for your amazing love and support!

Torsten's new wheels - he LOVES them!