Ryder had his surgery 1 week ago today. We woke up early that day and arrived at the hospital at 8:00 am like they asked us to. We waited for about 45 min, they gave us a room, and we changed ryder into hospital pjs, which were really cute! Well, I guess Ryder found his sippy cup that morning and had a sip before I was able to stop him, so the Dr. said he couldn't do the surgery because of the risk of aspiration while in surgery ( he could aspirate the milk into his lungs during surgery) So he rescheduled the surgery for that same afternoon at 4pm. Ryder was to only drink clear liquids until noon and then nothing to eat or drink after that. He did pretty good until about 3 pm, my poor child brought me a bowl and started saying "pees" (please) , he was so hungry and thirsty, he cried for 20 minutes and it was so hard for both him and me. I couldn't wait until 4 so I put him in the car and drove around until he fell asleep until 4pm. They checked him in again and we changed his clothes. I thought they were going to let me go with him until they put him to sleep, but they told us we couldn't go and had to give him to a nurse, he got so sad and it broke my heart. It was really hard to let him go with a stranger while he was crying "mom! mom!' He was in surgery for 2 hours! He did very good and the Dr. told us he removed every node that was infected and even the ones that were questionable, and was able to stay away from his facial nerve and major arteries. That was such a relief. The only thing that the Dr. didn't like was that he seemed to be coming down with a cold, so he ordered for Ryder to stay at the hospital overnight to watch his oxygen level and breathing. So far all the results have come back normal, but I guess it takes a few weeks for them to find out what bacteria was in his lymph nodes. We do know that it wasn't TB or cancer! He is taking 2 different kinds of antibiotics for a few months and his scar is healing very well. Our son is a fighter. We thought he was going to be in a lot of pain after the surgery but he did great, they only had to give him lortab at the hospital once and then just regular tylenol, he also started jumping on the hospital bed the next morning and was running up and down the halls. He is acting completely normal and hasn't complained once about his neck, he is also eating so well. We are very happy with the outcome and are so proud of him for being so brave, he really made this a lot easier than we thought it would be. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers, we couldn't have gotten through this without them. We love you all! I will post his surgery pics later.
