Recovery - Day 1

The day of surgery, Ryder's recovery was rough. I mean really rough. He continuously coughed up blood, cried and couldn't sit still. He was so uncomfortable, in pain, was hungry, thirsty and did NOT sleep. As soon as he woke from anesthesia he was up until 10:45pm with only 10-15 minute naps in between. He would fall asleep in our arms then wake up coughing blood. It was horrible! He was also running a fever which didn't help things. Throughout the day, we tried getting him to drink liquids but he hated (and still hates) syringe feeding and you could tell that swallowing really hurt his throat. Our hearts just broke and we tried keeping it together as best we could. My husband and I would take turns holding him trying to do whatever we could to soothe him.

We read books. 

Rubbed his back. 

Tried laying him in his crib. 

Went to the play room to paint. 

Walked (Ryder and I wheeled) round and round the hospital floor, looking at different things. 

We tried playing with toys. 

Watching TV. 

Reading more books. 

Ryder's cleft buddy, Brock, sent Ryder this Mickey balloon reminding him of their future Disney dates when he got better. 

We tried more bubbles. 

But roaming the hospitals floor seemed to be the only thing to do the trick on the first day. We roamed it at ALL day and night. 

Finally, at 9pm we decided to try giving Ryder a dose of morphine (which we tried so hard to avoid) to get him to fall asleep.  An hour and a half later it finally went into effect and Ryder slept...for a whole 2 hours. 

To say that first day and night was rough is an understatement but we felt the prayers and knew God was comforting him in ways only He could.