Bringing him home #
The hardest part of the day was behind us, but recovery was only beginning. Everything felt unfamiliar. There was a catheter to protect, dressings to keep clean, medications to give on time, and diaper changes that suddenly required two adults instead of one.
Before surgery, I had worried constantly about whether we would know how to care for him once we left the hospital. The truth was that we learned one day at a time.
Discovering a new routine #
Our son was still young, which made some parts of recovery easier than we expected. He wasn’t walking yet, so keeping him calm was much less difficult than it would be after later surgeries.
Most of our days quickly settled into a routine. We gave his medications on schedule, changed diapers carefully, played with him, and tried to keep his attention away from the surgical area. During diaper changes, both of us worked together. One person distracted him and gently held his hands, while the other cleaned the area and changed the diaper.
At first, every diaper change made us nervous. Little by little, it became part of our daily routine.
The first scare #
A few days after surgery, we noticed blood on his pants after one of his HBOT sessions. When we looked more closely back home, we saw that the bandage had become loose, and we could partially see the dark red and purple surgical site underneath.
We were terrified, and immediately called the care team, but no one answered. We took photos and sent an email instead. The reply came back quickly.
They told us that what we were seeing was normal. As long as there was no continuous bleeding, there was no need to worry. In fact, they explained that seeing fresh blood could be reassuring because it meant blood was reaching the tissue and supporting healing.
That was the first time we realized how different recovery looked from what we had imagined.
Learning to trust the process #
Another milestone we worried about was catheter removal. Before surgery, it sounded frightening. In reality, it went much more smoothly than we expected.
We placed the large Elizabethan collar around our son’s waist and handed him a few small toys. The collar blocked all of his view, and he became completely interested in the toys and the collar. He hardly noticed what the medical team was doing.
It reminded us that babies often cope with things differently than adults expect. Sometimes, they simply move on to the next interesting thing.
Healing isn’t always pretty #
Around five days after surgery, shortly after the bandage came off, we noticed some yellow drainage around the surgical site. Once again, we took photos and sent them to our surgeon.
Instead of using Aquaphor right away, we were advised to use Manuka honey while the area healed. We followed those instructions for several weeks. Once the inflammation had resolved, we switched to a steroid cream twice a day. Aquaphor became part of our routine whenever we wanted to reduce friction during diaper changes.
There were many moments like this throughout recovery. Something would worry us. We would ask. The care team would explain. Gradually, we became a little less afraid.
Looking back #
When we first left the center, I was afraid that every diaper change might hurt him or that I might accidentally make a mistake.
By the end of those first weeks, I realized something had changed Nothing about caring for him had become easy. But it had become familiar.
Without noticing it, we had learned how to read the healing process, when to ask questions, and when to trust that his body was doing exactly what it was supposed to do.
Looking back now, the first surgery taught us much more than postoperative care. It taught us that we were capable of learning things we never imagined we would need to know.
Take a deep breath. One day at a time.
