Surgery Day

We're home and everything went great! Aiden's sleeping right now so I thought I better update before he gets up, because who knows what tonight and tomorrow will be like. Here's how our day went.

The day started close to 4:30am. We had to be to Johns Hopkins by 5:30am for check-in, surgery at 7:30am. Luckily for us, we don't live too far away, and even had time to stop and get coffee on the way. I was a nervous wreck, Aiden was all smiles. He had no clue what was about to come.

We were called back to pre-op around 6:30 and then it was just person after person coming in and asking questions, nurses, two anesthesiologists, two different doctors (plus residents) who were going to assist Dr. Niparko. All I wanted was to see our surgeon, Dr. Niparko, to know we were all set. Something about him calms me ... it's the same something that nine months ago made me feel he needed to be the one to implant Aiden. And then he came and I got all teary eyed. He reassured me that everything was going to go just fine. He told us that surgery would be right around 3 hours and no matter what, they'd come out at 10:30 to give us an update.

They allowed one of us to go back with Aiden and I chose Aiden's daddy. I tried during his MRI but couldn't watch Aiden struggle as they put the mask on. Within minutes Aiden's daddy was back and Aiden was out. It was just a bit after 7:30am.


We went and ate a bagel and I got more coffee. Then we just went and sat in the waiting area. Aiden's daddy slept (he says he sleeps when he's nervous ... I say men can sleep through anything), and I tried to read, plan the next couple weeks dinners, etc. Before I knew it, it was 9:30. This is when my nervous belly came back and time went sluggishly by. I got even more nervous as I watched 10:30 pass us by, but just before 11am, the surgeon came out and we jumped up to hear.


Dr. Niparko said the whole surgery went absolutely wonderful. He said that Aiden did have quite a bit of inflammation, but no infection. He got a full insertion on both ears and said that both ears have a near identical insertion ... which means that both ears will hear pretty much the same and that mapping will be that much easier. I will post later about the whole insertion process and show pictures of what the implant looks like, right now I'm just too tired.


Then we got to go see our baby. He was just coming to from anesthetic and of course very fussy. He was sucking down pedialyte like crazy. I got him in my arms and fed him a bottle as I rocked and calmed him. It felt so great to hold my baby, knowing the hardest part (emotionally and physically anyway) was done. He made it through. My baby is ready to hear. Next stop ... healing then activation.


We left the hospital by 2pm and were home soon after. I can't believe how short the day actually was, especially with bilateral implants! But even more so, I can't believe we're one step closer to our baby hearing! A lot of people ask, "can he hear now?" and no he can't. His implants are inserted, but now they need to be "turned on" and then lots and lots and lots of therapy. Again, another whole post for later. Today was a very important day. We are so very thankful for Dr. Niparko and his team at Johns Hopkins. We couldn't have been in any better hands! They all did such a wonderful job with our baby and we can't thank them enough.

I'm sure I'm missing things, but I'm worn out. Aiden's been sleeping a lot, but should be back to himself tomorrow. We will try to leave the bandage on until Friday, but I have a feeling it will be off before the end of tomorrow. All I know is that now that it's all said and done, I feel this huge sense of relief ... I can breathe again. Even more important, I know that today Aiden was given the gift of the ability to hear by an amazing surgeon. Now it's up to us to make it happen. Hearing world ... "hear" he comes!