Julian is home!

After Karen and her lovely daughter came to visit in the ICU, Little Monkeystarted acting like he was in more and more pain. For about half the time he was awakem he was smiley and interactive, and had long conversations with "Fire Bear" (one of the toys brought to us by the Oakland fire department).

During these periods, we managed to bring Rorysaurus back in to see him, and she had a great time visiting in her surgeon's scrubs:

Little Monkey was glad to see his sister and even batted keys for his Papa:

Poor little guy then got very, very fussy, and so I held him until his drugs kicked back in.

Tuffy took Rorysaurus out to the little kids' play area and let her run around before heading home. Seriously, is this a GREAT hospital or what?

I had to stay with my monkey baby because he wasn't eating from the bottle anymore, so after a few hours napping while Godmom and/or Tuffy watched at bedside, I had to be with the cute little guy. He was waking every two hours, refusing a bottle, craving his Morphine, and having a very rough time. The nurses, fantastic and wonderful women that they were, helped me figure out why he was in more pain than the last time. Turns out, instead of Morphine and Tylenol with Codeine, he'd just been getting regular infant Tylenol. Orders were written for Ty-Co, and upon reciving his first does, Little Monkey tore out his IV (which was only being used for the morphine at that point anyway). The nurses and I decided not to put the IV back in right away and to see if the Ty-Co worked for his pain, in which case he'd be done with his IV, and would only have his O2 monitor and his heart stickies on. The oral meds worked, and he was able to avoid another needle stick, even at his most swollen:

Almost immediately after the oral meds had started, they moved us to the floor (on Friday morning). He skipped the annex of the ICU this time (the quiet side) and went straight up a whole day earlier. Then, up there, he made lots and lots of friends with student nurses, including this guy who said no one would ever believe he'd been holding a baby:

Friday night, the plastic surgeon came by, checked the baby out, and said he could go home if he wanted. Our pediatrician agreed, and so the neurosurgeon was apged to sign the orders. Eventually, the only thing holding us up was the Rx for his pain meds, which we got and rushed home. The bandages came off once we were home, as per instructions:

The scar looks FANTASTIC, even just a few days post-op, and it is easily hidden by a hat:

Not that it matters when you're looking at his cute little face:

The plan had been to build him "man-brow" but since they worked only on the back of his head, his little face has been left alone. However, a good third of his head has no skull in it, so he's got a soft-spot the size of my hand (fingers included). There may be more surgery for the little dude, but this time around, he did fantastically, and he isn't getting helmeted (at least not as of now).

He's back to his cheery little self, and played quietly in his exersaucer and with Rorysaurus Godmother while we moved little bits of stuff over on the weekend to the new home:

A special thanks to Godmom (as well as her son and daughter-in-law) who came to lift heavy things, clean and cook for us while we were in the hospital.