We're going home!!!!

Wow!  These boys of mine are tough.  Plus, many people have been praying for their quick recovery.  The hospital has never had a kid ready to go home from the Nuss Bar procedure surgery within 48 hours, but Jacob was ready.  Joel followed suit and 48 hours after his surgery, he made a major turn for the better and stopped pushing his morphine button.  Jacob has been discharged and now we are all sitting in Joel's room watching a movie waiting for 10:00 when Joel will have been off of IV pain meds for 8 hours so we can all go home!  Usually kids are on morphine for 3 days and then the last day make the transition to oral pain meds.  There is still a lot of pain when the guys get up or down, but that is under control with their oxycodone, which means they are ready to get out of here.

Here's what has happened since Tuesday when we checked in.

We took some "Before" shots

Then they waited their turns for the operating table.

This is Jacob's first "after" picture

Joel's surgery was about 4 hours after Jacob's.  He had a little trouble getting enough oxygen after the surgery because it really hurt to take a deep breath.

The first night was a bit rough and the boys were hooked up to IV fluid and morphine, and they each  had an oxygen monitor on their finger and a........catheter down below.

The day of surgery they were expected to do nothing other than rest and stay pain-free.  Yesterday the goal was for them to get up once or twice and walk a little.  Jacob decided he was feeling so good he did it about 5 times, which was enough to convince the doctor he was done with a catheter.  He felt much better instantly, as you can imagine.

This was encouragement for Joel to get moving more.  He started getting up and down by himself to show that he could be done with his catheter as well.  Smart boys.

Jacob was the first to venture out of bed and walked down to Joel's room so they could see what the results of each other's surgery were.

They posed for this picture of their new chests.

 Now as soon as Joel is unhooked from his IV we can leave.  They left it in just in case he took a downturn and needed morphine again.   They are both excited to go home and take showers to wash the hospital smell and grunge of recovery away.

I am so grateful that we had such a great surgeon who was able to fix these boys up.  He said that Joel's pectus was much, much deeper than the MRI showed that it was.  He will now know what life with more than 75% of his lung capacity feels like.

This hospital is very nice, but it will be wonderful to be home again.  Sure it is nice to be here to have someone take such good care of them, but, as Joel said today, "I can swallow pills and watch movies at home.  Let's get out of here."