Shortly before Seth's 2 month well-child check up, I was giving him a bath and I noticed something that wasn't quite right. I had a washcloth over his stomach to keep him warm. He was screaming, since he hates taking baths, and when I moved the washcloth to wash the lower half of his body, I saw a large lump that didn't belong. I knew right away it was a hernia, but I really didn't want to be right. There was no denying it though. I told his doctor at his well-child. He referred me to a pediatric abdominal surgeon. My doctor tried to feel the hernia, but couldn't, which is normal. When there's a hole in the abdominal wall, the intestines can protrude through it when pressure is exerted through crying or straining, but they also go back up when there's no pressure on them. He suggested I try to take a picture of it. It's really hard to get a good picture of a lump that only appears when your baby is screaming. I got a picture, but decided not to put it on here even with some editing to keep it g-rated. If you really want to see what an inguinal hernia looks like, just Google it. Just kidding. Don't. You'll be traumatized. There's some pictures of some really severe hernias in people of all ages. Let's just say his was not too severe, but definitely obvious.
Two of my other boys had already had surgeries related to hernias. One of them was due to a congenital umbilical hernia, which is not really linked to an inguinal hernia. He had that fixed at seven years old mostly because of the appearance. It wasn't causing problems, but it was causing other kids to ask questions when he went swimming. It also had the potential to cause problems as he got older. Another had a hydrocele which is linked to an inguinal hernia. It's basically a really small hole that allows fluid to travel back and forth from the abdomen to the scrotum. It usually closes on it's own, but his never did. He had surgery at 2 to close it up.
I took Seth to the surgeon to see what he had to say as far as when to get it fixed. I was very paranoid about it, so I hated to hear Seth cry at all since I didn't know if it would lead to more problems or if he was crying harder because it hurt when he cried. It was quite nerve wracking. The surgeon suggested we go ahead and fix it soon. It can lead to intestinal strangulation which would be an emergency situation and I didn't want to be in an emergency situation that could be avoided. He said he always scopes the other side because 20% of the time there is one on the other side that isn't apparent until the first one is fixed. We scheduled the surgery for a day Lance had already planned to take off. I was really planning on Lance being there with us, but things didn't work out like that. He had some issues of his own he was dealing with, so he ended up staying home with the kids and I had Seth by myself.
At three months old, Seth got to have his first surgery. He was scheduled for one of the first surgeries in the morning. He couldn't have any food after 2 am I think. That was the worst part. I was so worried he'd be screaming for hours before the surgery. He did amazing though. Even though he hates the car, he was fine in the car. He didn't cry when we got there and checked in, either. Even when we went back to the pre-op he didn't cry. The nurse tried to get his blood pressure for about 15 minutes. She didn't have a cuff small enough to work for him though. I could hardly keep it together because I was so worried all of the messing around with him would start him wailing and I knew I probably wouldn't be able to calm him down after that. But he didn't cry.
We got into our room and I got his gown and pants on him even though they were way too big, which brought me close to tears since it just made him seem so much smaller. He's been experimenting with sucking his thumb, but he doesn't seem to prefer it over a pacifier.
I only took a few pictures since I really wasn't able to leave him on the bed for long.
Most of the time I paced the room walking from one side of the bed to the other while I held Seth. His surgery got pushed back about 90 minutes because of complications with the previous surgeries. As much as it drove me crazy, I just kept telling myself it was better to be waiting than to be the parent of the child whose surgery was met with complications. Towards the last 20 minutes he was getting pretty sad. It wasn't an all out breakdown, but he was getting close. The waiting was difficult. They finally came for him. The surgeon came and talked to me and told me it should take about 30 minutes for his part. So I sat and waited some more.
After 45 minutes I started getting worried. Finally, after 70 minutes, they came to tell me he was out and was in recovery. Once he was awake and stable, they'd bring him to me. It turns out there was a small hole on the right side as well. Because of that, he ended up with three incisions. Two were at his waist and the third was in his belly button. I was glad to have it all done at once. When they finally brought him to me, he was pretty upset. It was a combination of waking up and being starving. Before he could leave, he had to have a good feeding which seems logical, except Seth was not very cooperative and I was totally engorged trying to feed him while sitting on an uncomfortable chair while trying to keep covered since the nurses kept coming in and out. One of them was a young male nurse, which made it all the more awkward. They kept asking me how it was going and since Seth was obviously screaming, I couldn't really say "Great, can we go home now?" Finally, an hour later after he nursed for about 5 minutes, they decided he would be fine and we could go home. I think they really just wanted the bed for other pre-op patients, but I was ok with that. I knew he would be much more likely to settle down and eat at home, which he did.
He didn't have stitches on the incision sites, just surgical super glue that would wear off on it's own. What's crazy is they don't even prescribe anything beyond Tylenol for pain. I kept him on a pretty regular schedule of Tylenol for the first couple of days. He didn't seem to be in too much pain.
His surgery was on a Friday and I had Lance's mom come over on Sunday while I took the other kids to the first hour of church. Looking back that seems really dumb, but it seemed like it would be fine at the time. About three fourths of the way through the meeting Lance came down from the stand and told me he'd gotten a text from his sister saying his mom had called her to see if she could get a hold of Lance. His mom had tried calling my cell phone but I didn't think to bring my phone. Seth wouldn't calm down and she was just worried about him being in pain or causing problems from crying. So I booked it home and fed him and he was fine. He just really likes to eat every two hours!
He healed up pretty quickly and hasn't had any problems.
