Where to begin? The  palate is repaired, we’re home from the hospital, Simon is adjusting.

Todd and I did the math on our way out of Doernbecher and realized we’d been in the hospital for about twenty-eight hours. It seemed both freakishly short for such a seemingly major surgery, but at the same time extraordinarily prolonged on account of all the adrenaline and lack of sleep. I think general relativity addresses this, but only if we were traveling some significant fraction of the speed of light, which may actually have been the case for all we know.

We (okay, I) were a little concerned they would want to postpone the surgery on account of Simon’s recently (i.e. the night before) developed cough. But apparently, the cough was just an upper-respiratory ailment and his lungs were clear, so they went ahead and operated.

Simon’s surgery was the surgeon’s first one of the day. So we checked in a little after six in the morning. By quarter after eight they were underway, and by eleven, he was done. It took him a while to wake up, and evidently did try to wake up at some point, but was very upset and “wild” (I imagine there was a lot of screaming and trying to hit people, since that’s what goes on at home) so the nurse gave him some medicine, which sent him back to sleep for a very long time, earning him the title of Narcotics Lightweight.

When he did wake up, he screamed a lot and tried to hit people, but since his arms were immobilized by the “No-No” restraints (more later), he couldn’t wind up a good swing, which just made him madder. We’ve learned that nothing really makes Simon madder than People Messing With Him and Being Restrained, both of which he was having to endure while coming off of anesthesia. “With a temper like that, you could grow up to be a surgeon!” the recovery nurse told him. Simon continued to scream as we were escorted to our private room, as we settled in, and until we stuck some Pedialyte in his mouth. Dude sucked it down (six ounces total – some kind of record we were told) and collapsed into sleep.

So we thought we had this all figured out. The Boy cries because he’s so thirsty. We give him Drink, and he returns to sleep to rebuild tissue and regenerate his stores. Neato!

And then we had a two-hour screaming freakout. Which eventually subsided. Which is enough said about that.

Our room had a bench-like bed for Todd and a pull-out chair-bed for me. The chair-bed was about six feet long and two feet wide, and comprised three sections, none of which were coplanar, and the head of which swallowed at least one pillow. This would have been endurable had Simon wanted to sleep in his own bed. And so it was that Simon and I spent the world’s longest night (technically, one of the year’s shortest, but we were traveling at 0.8c, remember) in the world’s narrowest chair-bed. He started out on my chest, I awoke around midnight, thinking it must be near dawn. The nurse came in to medicate him, and I assumed it was four in the morning. I realized I was soaked with something, felt his diaper, confirmed my suspicions, and was too tired to act. The nurse came in to medicate him again around four. It was very confusing. In the meantime, Simon had somehow shifted onto his back next to me, arms spread eagle, hogging the entire chair-bed. I wondered why his own bed would not have been satisfactory for this purpose, but whenever he would stir, and I would pat him and say “Mama’s still here” he would quiet back down and go back to sleep. So I guess it was worth it.

Now that we’re home, Simon’s demonstrating amazing resolve in getting back to normal. He’s required to wear his No-No (unofficial name) arm restraints at all times for four weeks, to keep him from putting fingers (his favorite) or objects (a close second) in his mouth and reopening the cleft. Each arm is encapsulated in what looks to most people like an oceanographically themed air cast (so most people, strangely, don’t ask about them). In reality, they’re thickly velcroed splits with a piece of sturdy substance (metal? plastic?) in them to keep him from bending at the elbow.

Do you know how useful elbows are? Simon does. He started off the morning pretty upset that all he could do was pick up a toy and toss it behind him. But by the afternoon, he was pointing, turning pages, patting toys, and hitting Mama in the face. Watching him negotiate eating, playtime, and reading time between morning and afternoon was like watching a time-lapse reenactment of his babyhood developmental milestones. I’m pretty sure in the next day or two he’ll learn to move from place to place (currently, he just looks longingly and whiningly at where he wants to go, but hasn’t figured out how to make it happen). At this rate, he will start walking, speaking, and doing physics before the month is out.

But anyway, it’s eleven at night and too late for this Mama to be up. I’m so very proud of the Boy and how well he’s adjusting to his new situation. Would that we were all so resilient.

Apologies to the grandmas, from whose newsy e-mail I’m taking the majority of this post…but c’mon grandmas, you know you want to read it twice.

We met with Dr. Sleep today to follow up on Simon’s second sleep study. We hadn’t met him previously, and we really like him. He’s one more data point in favor of my theory that I really like health care providers (for  my child) who have kids of their own. I guess that’s not so much of a “theory,” per se, as much as…personal preference? Gut feeling? This appointment involved no poking or prodding of the boy, and certainly no looking in his ears (which he hates). In fact, the boy got to sit happily on Mama’s lap and play with his burp cloth and a little blue truck the whole time.

(I should note that in the car between picking up Todd at work and arriving at the hospital, Simon had a complete and utter screaming meltdown. He wasn’t hungry, wasn’t poopy, maybe was tired, but showed later that in fact he was just bored and lonely. As soon as I got him out of the car he was fine. He was making some real “a banshee is terrorizing me and therefore I must replicate the banshee noises” noises. It was both laughable and heart-rending, and actually bothered Todd more than it did me. Which now in retrospect makes me feel coldhearted, but whatever.)

This doctor was the first one in all the professionals we’ve seen who has asked us what we do professionally. I guess if you’re going to show some parents several pages of graphical data, it helps to know at what level they’re going to process it. But it makes me wonder why Simon’s surgeons haven’t ever asked us that – wouldn’t it be helpful to them to know whether they can use the phrase “Eustachian tube” or if they have to explain “…so there’s this ‘tube’ that connects the ear and throat…” (as two of them have done). But I digress. Dr. Sleep, not his real name for those keeping track at home, showed us printouts from the two sleep studies, and it was obvious that the most recent one was lots better. There were some freakishly low oxygen levels at the beginning of the recent one, but that was apparently an equipment malfunction, and indeed, I remember the technician coming in the room several times fiddling with the oxygen sensor. The part of the study from where the oxygen sensor was working properly looked not ideal, but pretty good. Simon had a few apneas, but his sleep and oxygen saturation was much, much improved from a few months ago. As long as nothing with his sleep-breathing changes, he doesn’t need the surgery that would lengthen his jaw and open his airway. But we need to keep monitoring him. As long as Simon is breathing without a lot of effort at night and continues to gain weight (we get another weigh-in on Monday), no surgery for now.

I asked how long we would need to be monitoring his breathing, and Dr. Sleep told us “probably until he stops growing,” which is about 19 years of age or something. I guess as doting parents, we’ll still be sneaking into his room before we go to bed to watch him breathe up until he leaves for college anyway, so no biggie. And if he goes to Rice, the Houston grandparents can take over.

However, we get to do another sleep study in six months to see how things stand. By that point, I’ll be such a sleep study expert that I ought to ask if I can do the sensor hook-up myself. Okay, no, but I will be an expert at using the waffle machine at the complimentary breakfast at the Marriott Residence Inn, the official sleep study hotel. And next time, I’m totally taking advantage of the king-sized bed for sleep and not for sitting next to on the hotel couch while I fart around on the internet.

In the meantime, this winter, we’re supposed to try not to let Simon get a cold, since that will stuff him up and inhibit his breathing. If I can figure out how to keep him from getting a cold, I will write another blog post about my secrets for all you parents out there.

Our next adventure happens on Monday, when Simon gets to undergo a CT scan ordered by his plastic surgeon (the one who will be doing his cleft repair). I originally thought she wanted the scan because they were going to go ahead and do the jaw surgery and this was their way of telling us. But she really just wants to see how his jaw is structured, which will apparently give some insight into whether it’s a small jaw, large tongue, or some other airway issue that gives him the breathing difficulties when he’s on his back.

However, doing a CT scan requires one to lie very still. So still, in fact, that no one trusts a five-month-old baby to do it on his own. So Simon and I get to undergo an adventure called Sedation Preparation — it rhymes, see — on Monday. He’s allowed formula up to four hours beforehand, and clear liquids up to two hours beforehand, and they really want me to deny him his nap so as to make him as naturally sleepy as possible for the sedation. Simon’s pediatric advice nurse said the clear liquid that will “keep him the most pleasant” in the pre-sedation period is pedialyte, so I guess that’s what we’ll do. I just have to believe that Simon won’t think I’m being mean on purpose, because he loves me or something. I’ve found, though, that when he wants to sleep, nothing I do (even singing “No Sleeping! No Sleeping! Wait for your Bed!” on the bus) will keep him from it — he’s half Melton after all. So I fully anticipate that I’ll refrain from feeding him, keep him awake through relentless poking and singing, only to have him conk out on the car ride to the hospital. I’m trying not to think of Sedation Preparation as “this terrible ordeal we have to endure,” but instead of “a typical Monday! with coffee for Mama!”

In other news, he’s now got three teeth. We’ve tried many times to capture them photographically, but Mr. Sir is pretty sly and closes his mouth just as the shutter opens. He has the two in front on the bottom and one weird poky thing off to the left where the molars are/will be. Other people have corroborated the weird poky bit. We think he’s working on another one since he’s been uncharacteristically cranky. Tylenol does seem to take the edge off, though.

We’re really thankful for the recommendation of “no surgery for now” and continue to pray that his jaw grows out on its own. This whole process has been really educational, but we’ll be glad when it’s all over and Simon doesn’t need any more special care, even if that’s when he’s a nineteen-year-old college student whose grandparents need to poke him in the ribs to make sure he’s still breathing when he’s been crashed on the couch for three hours at their house for Thanksgiving.