It’s amazing how quickly the days have flown by.  Mason has been recovering very well.

We spent one night in the hospital.  Mason was not at all excited about staying in the hospital, but he was a trooper and used the experience as an opportunity to catch up on his cartoons.  He was very comfortable, but didn’t sleep much at all that night, so neither did we.  I’ll admit that I got a few solid hours in the pre-dawn stretch, but I don’t think Andrea fared as well.  We were transferred to a private room Monday evening, and when we looked out the window in the morning, what did we see?  A construction site!  And not only that, it’s Grandpa’s construction site!  With a loader and forklift and dump trucks and everything!

We had a brief visit with Dr. Rozzelle, and Mason was happy to be be discharged.  The first thing we did was go see Grandpa across the street and look at the construction

Mason was so brave for his surgery that Santa brought him one present early, and it was waiting for him at Oma’s house.  He guessed it was Rokenbok before he even uncovered it, but he’s spend about 50% of his waking time playing with it ever since .

Of course, Daddy has done just as much playing as Mason has. This one took me a few hours, but it’s mostly survived Mason’s reconstruction efforts for a few days now.

We took the kids to the zoo yesterday, since the weather was so warm. Mostly we ran in circles around the reptile house. This is Mason’s impression of a crocodile:

and Giselle’s too, of course:

Mason has been ‘his old self’ practically since we came home. His sleeping schedule is still way off (he just went down at ~2am), but otherwise the hardest part has been protecting him from himself. (“No, you can’t play pillow fight right now.”) Thanks again for all the support. We can’t wait to see him without his bandages in a few weeks!

Well, here we are again.

Mason had a major nose and lip revision this morning, to remove some scar tissue and hopefully open up his sinuses a bit.  This is the first major procedure he’s had since his palate repair at 10 months old.

We arrived at the hospital at 10am.  Andrea went in to do the paperwork while Mason and I parked in the parking garage at Children’s Hospital.  The process has become very familiar to us: admitting, waiting, pre-op, waiting, surgery, 2 stages of recovery, and then transfer to the room. By the time Mason and I made it inside (after driving up to the 12th floor!), Andrea had moved through the admission process and they were ready to take us up to the surgical waiting area.  Not long after, we moved into pre-op, in which they take all Mason’s vitals and ask us ‘the routine’ about allergies, prior surgeries, current medications, etc.  We also changed Mason into his awesome hospital gown.

From pre-op, Mason is allowed to have one person (Mommy, of course) go with him into the OR.  For that, Mommy has to don her own gown.  Mason was surprisingly cheerful throughout the process, and was even telling the doctors about how “the surgery is no big deal, I’m very brave” and the like.

Mason was in surgery for about 3 hours, during which Dr. Rozzelle reshaped his right nostril, removed scar tissue from his lip, and “crunched his septum over,” whatever that means.  We got to see him again in a post-op recovery room after he woke up.  He was understandably unhappy, but I was very surprised at how quickly he mellowed out–especially once he got ahold of a blue popsicle .  This is his first attempt at a smile.  Shortly afterward, we were moved up to Mason’s hospital room.

My mom brought us lunch and sat with us during the procedure and afterward.  Andrea’s parents came by later on to bring us dinner and hang out for a bit.  Other than that, it’s been a quiet evening.  I am amazed how well Mason is coping with everything.  Other than a stubborn insistence that we will *not* be spending the night in the hospital, he’s been very good about everything and has charmed every nurse he’s met along the way.  He enjoys walking the hallways with his IV stand, and playing with the tools in the 6th floor playroom.

He’s not complained of any pain, and has been surprisingly amiable all day.  While I know that he’s old enough now to remember this procedure, the flipside is that he’s also able to communicate with us about what’s bothering him, and that makes things SO MUCH EASIER than when he was a baby.  Other than the bandages on his nose and lip, and a little bit of bruising, you wouldn’t know he’d been through surgery this morning.

At this point, we’re just trying to get him to fall asleep so that we can crash too.  It’s 11pm, and he’s not slept since the procedure.  Isn’t morphine supposed to make you drowsy?

Thanks to all of our friends and family for their love and support today. We were very touched by the knowledge that so many people care about Mason.