Healing Up!

Boys loving Denny's new '55 Bel Air


Carter was fast asleep when I went back upstairs last night and he slept great the rest of the night. He is slowly shedding the Steri-Strips from his surgery incision. The doctors had told us they’ll just kind of curl off on their own 2-3 weeks post-transplant. We removed his two bandages that covered his drainage spots on either side of him, and they looked good. A surgery mishap I had forgotten to mention was that Carter got a bad Betadine burn in his armpit from surgery. I had been given advice from another mom whose daughter had a liver transplant at UCLA five years ago. She told me weeks ago that after surgery we should have the nurses check Carter’s back for any pooling of the Betadine (which they use to clean the patient’s whole body prior to surgery). Her daughter’s went unnoticed for days and resulted in a terrible burn. So, right when we got to the ICU after surgery Matt and I had the nurses wipe down Carter's back and groin area. Well, the next day we noticed Carter’s armpit was very red. And within a couple hours after noticing it, it began to blister and look awful. They had been treating it in the hospital with this gel bandage, and sent us home with some more to use. Matt and I felt like it had gotten to the point when it just needed air and would heal. We’re so glad we decided on that, it looks 100% better in a day. Slowly, but surely, the exterior of Carter’s body is healing from his surgery. He does have pretty bad bruising around the incision area that the doctors had told us was normal. Hopefully, the interior of this body is healing just as fast, or faster!

We are trying to get Carter to consume more fluids since the doctor said he was dehydrated yesterday. I gave each of the boys a water bottle to drink out of during lunch. Carter thinks it’s such a treat because he is usually drinking out of his sippy cup. And sure enough, he was drinking more…for a while. I ran to change the load of laundry while they were eating and came back to Carter saying, “I’m so hot.” Our air conditioning was on and it was not hot in our house. He had dumped the water bottle on his head and was squeezing it. Water was everywhere. Obviously, he’s seen his brother and his Dad doing this. I had to sort of chuckle when I called Matt at the office and told him he needed to come home for a Broviac dressing change, Carter’s shirt was soaked. Matt laughed too, and was home 15 minutes later.

Bennett and Carter had a great time playing together today. I love seeing them interact. Carter thinks Bennett is the greatest thing on earth, and Bennett loves that he thinks it. In two weeks, Carter will be back in the hospital for four days having chemo and when he gets home this new baby will be living with us. A few days after that, Bennett starts school. So, it’s nice for them to have this down-time right now when things just seem as normal as they could.