Aiden's Amazing Life: Feels Good To Be Free

We have made it to Day Ten Post Op which is always an exciting day for a lot of reasons! The most exciting is that this means that Aiden got to have his drains and bandages removed. And boy oh boy it feels good to be free from that. This also means that it becomes time for a bath...FINALLY. That is definitely one of my least favorite things from this process because Aiden stinks for ten days of nothing but hospital smell and bandages!

Day Ten also marks the day that we normally get to do the very first fill. Since Aiden has some slight bruising on the upper shoulder one, Dr. Bauer had warned us that we may not be able to fill at the ten days. Luckily, we weren't told that we couldn't start, so we decided to go forward but just slowly. I took Aiden's drains out in the morning and then bandaged him back up to catch the excess fluid that was coming out. It was crazy this time how much fluid we had draining this time!!! Aiden did great! I talked about filling his bubbles throughout the day because I didn't want him to be ambushed when it actually was time. He is at that age where he can be very sensitive about what is happening to him.

I decided that dinner time would be the perfect time to numb him up with the lidocaine cream. He knew something was up as soon as I brought the press n seal out with the cream and started to cry a little that he didn't want me to do it. It was definitely more difficult than in the past to keep him sitting in the high chair after he was finished with dinner but we managed ok. He enjoyed some carrot cake and then a sucker to help pass the time while watching a show on the good ol' iPad. The suckers used to help slow it down but now he just knows that he can bite it off!

Soon enough, it was time to start the bubbles. He immediately started to whine and cry a little but he was excited to take a bath with this new submarine toy that he got in Chicago, so this helped give him some motivation to get this over with. My mom held him in her lap while I prepped the area. He said "owie" before I even stuck the needle in so I thought that this might not go so well. BUT much to my surprise, he did really well. Whimpered for a small portion but then once the needle was in, he realized that it didn't hurt and he went about his way, looking at other things. I put 50cc into the back expander so that one is now at 130cc! It already looks so big to me! Then I put 15cc into the shoulder one just to keep is really safe so that one is now up to 40cc. That one is already so noticeable since it sticks right out of his shirt so it will be interesting to see it grow over these next few weeks!

I am beyond happy that it went so well. Hopefully the other fills go just as smooth. I think giving him a motivation really helped!! Thanks again for everyone who reaches out to us during this time. It really does help. Stay tuned for more updates and check out his growing bubbles...