Surgery Followup

James went for his surgery follow-up appointment on Monday, and everything looked good.

James had pulled off about half of the steristrips (adhesive gauze) over his main incision, and the surgeon removed the rest. The surgeon also took out the stitches in the incision where his ostomy had been. (The stitches in the main incision just dissolve on their own, but they use outside stitches for an ostomy closure to allow it to heal from the inside and reduce the risk of infection.)

I was also happy to see that James was very cheerful during the appointment; he waved at the surgeon and smiled at the nurses, and only fussed when he was actually getting the stitches out and when they had to make repeated tries to get his blood pressure. By the time he left the hospital after his surgery, he'd developed something like stranger anxiety -- he did not want to be held by anyone but me and Mike, and sometimes he would cry when the nurses came in. That's certainly an understandable reaction to several days of lots of strangers doing relatively unpleasant things to him, but I was really glad to see that it appeared to be only temporary.

The only issue is the continuing terrible diaper rash. They gave us a prescription for cholestyramine, which helps absorb bile and makes the poop less acidic, so it should be a little easier on his bottom.

Our latest experiment (started this afternoon) is to put him in loose cloth diapers during the day. We're hoping this will allow his bottom to get enough air to help heal up, but without having to put down a bunch of plastic and otherwise try to contain possible messes from no-diaper time. (Thanks again, Tanya, for the diapers -- they've been wonderful burp cloths for months, and now they get to serve another purpose!) They require fairly frequent changing (three in the first hour or so!), but that's fine, especially since we're hoping that once we get the rash healed up, we can prevent it from recurring even with regular diapers. (Wish us luck!)