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On the journey home!

We picked Max up from the hospital this morning, which is both a huge relief and really daunting at the same time.

We were told he did wonderfully overnight. Eating, drinking, walking, peeing. All the things he's supposed to be doing. We were also told he'd been resting a lot, which is also good. We sat in a visiting room while Dr. Pluhar went over his discharge instructions with us. Max fell asleep on my lap during that brief meeting. 

He has a complicated regimen of medications that will be changing frequently over the next several days as we need to wean him off of his steroids and administer antibiotics for a while. He will be on Phenobarbital, his anti-seizure medication, for the rest of his life. He also got to come home with some Tramadol, and opiate-based pain medication. I'm a little jealous.

I'm trying not to let my worry run away with me, but Max is obviously not fully himself. I have never undergone surgery where I needed to be anesthetized, so I don't know what it feels like. And I don't know anyone that has undergone brain surgery. Max is a bit disoriented, unsteady on his feet, weavy when he walks, has difficulty judging spatial relations, and he also seems to fixate on odd objects. He stared intently at my water bottle for several seconds after it caught his eye. Same thing with the hanging fruit basket in the kitchen. Either this is a side-effect of the drugs he's on ("whoa, dude...") or something in his brain is severely damaged and he'll never be the same Max I loved again. Obviously, there is a likely explanation and an unlikely explanation here, but just because my worry isn't dragging me down the street doesn't mean it's not clinging to my ankles.

I won't be able to kiss his head or right between his eyes for a while.
He has some swelling. We're told an ice pack every few hours
will help. But, unfortunately, Max won't.

He's been whimpering a bit, too. Isn't it odd when a little tiny thing can cause such a huge concern?When Brandon attempted to put an ice pack on Max's head, he yelped and barked. A clear objection and request for him to back off. The whimpers, on the other hand, could be him expressing pain, discomfort, frustration, confusion, or even relief. I would much rather deal with a loud but clear message then a subtle and ambiguous one any day. From anyone.

My brave, amazing boy.

We're supposed to keep Max quiet and resting as much as possible. He cannot be left unattended unless he's in a crate, go up or down stairs, jump on or off furniture or into/out of cars. We need to monitor his stool for blood. We've been told not to worry if he bleeds from his nose, but do worry if the blood is pure and doesn't have snot mixed in. He's susceptible to pneumonia right now so we need to be careful about that and bring him to the vet at the first sign of difficulty breathing. Basically, I have a great excuse to be as neurotic as I want for the next couple of weeks.  Lucky Brandon.

We just have to see how everything unfolds. I'm guessing we'll know more in a few days about how ha's come out of surgery personality-wise. It's hard to imagine that part of his frontal lobe can be taken out and his personality won't change; though that's exactly what we've been told will (not) happen. I'll feel much better when I see for myself. I can't wait until he looks at me and I know without any doubt that he knows who I am and he's happy and excited and comforted to see me. I think that's all any parent really wants to see on their kid's face, right?