Jack's surgery is over! Tuesday morning we headed over to Children's Hospital surgicenter. We had to be there at 6:30 am, before the sun came up! The night before Jack couldn't eat (have formula) after midnight, so I fed him at about 11:15, hoping he wouldn't be too hungry in the morning. He was a little fussy, but as soon as I put him in his car seat, he snuggled in and went back to sleep. The surgeon took him at about 7:30 am and he was done by 8:10! We got to see him about an hour later in recovery. He had a bottle of sugar water and was sleeping when we were allowed in the room. We stayed a couple hours just to make sure he was okay and after he had his IV taken out and had some formula. As you can see by the picture, the incision area is covered with several layers of bandages. You can see where it's a little bloody and I'm anxious to see what the scar looks like. We go back next week for a follow-up and to talk about scar management. I think everything went really well except one BIG thing, which I'm really upset about. As part of the discharge, the nurse explained that we could give him Tylenol 3 hours after his surgery. I asked about the dosage and specifically if it was based on the new concentration change. The nurse had no idea what I was talking about and insisted that it was the same as it was always and took out a bottle of the generic Tylenol. I explained to her that the over the counter pediatric acetaminophen products have changed their concentration and that there are different dosage directions. She said she would look into it and get back to me. About 30 minutes later she came back to the recovery room and admitted that she wasn't aware of this industry-wide change and either did any of her co-workers. She was very nice about it and very embarrassed, but blamed their pharmacist for not providing this information. I find this very disappointing that a pediatric surgery center was not aware of this industry-wide change. What is even more disconcerting is that patients and even the hospital could have both the old and new concentrations and not be giving the correct dosage. I emailed the patient relations office at Children's and hope that they investigate this and get back to me. Hopefully this will help any other patients at the surgicenter (they have 2 to 3 dozen a day!)
