Cordless!

There it is, three weeks after his surgery, my son is submerged in water.

He was so excited to take a bath tonight, he laid down even putting his ears under, and with his sensory processing, that's always been really hard for him. Such progress!

So, Yes, Chris is cordless. He got the catheter out yesterday at Riley. He was a skitchy mess, so Sam went on a playdate, and as soon as Dr. West came in, he started flipping out. He didn't want to lay down, she finally talked him into it, put her arms behind her back, just took a look, then went for her supplies. We told him she's only going to snip the one stitch, the owie one that held the tube to his skin. I think that was where most of his discomfort had been coming from. The nurse told him the tube would come out "Easy Peasy" but he didn't believe us, until he came out. Then he giggled, it didn't hurt, it was done. He freaked when we demonstrated the new kind of catheter that we were going to be using when we got home. But even he helped a little bit while Eric and I test slipped it in and out.
Dr. West says there shouldn't be any leakage from the stoma site because she created a flap underneath. She also suggested boosting Chris up to 450 mL H2O with 1 cap miralax for his flushes. She thinks we're not using enough, that's why it's not working. So we tried it today, still had a bit of breakthrough, but did get one peepee only diaper. She said if it didn't work, kick it up to 500. I'll go ahead and do that tomorrow. We've been doing a good job of doing flushes in the mornings, especially first thing, so as to get them in before schedule. I thought it was going to be rough yesterday, waking Chris to get him flushed at 6:30, so we could leave by 7:45 to get to Riley by 8:15. But we did it. He didn't exactly wake in a stellar mood, but he loves sitting and spending a bit of quality time with Daddy while he's on the potty. Why didn't we think of 2 potties side by side at the new house?
Meanwhile, Chris is so happy to be without a tube. He says it doesn't hurt to bend, he can roll in a ball. I even caught him doing forward rolls this evening. He's been literally running circles all around the house. Might be time to rejoin gymnastics. Life is Good. He's totally stoked about Swim Class tomorrow too.
We went to Therapy with Mr. Doug while we were at Riley. Doug was thoroughly impressed because Chris broke out the "Anicely, Doug may I play with your toys please?" 2 minutes after we got there. He said yes. Chris played well. We had found a playdate for Sam for the tube removal, so we were able to do some real talking with the therapist. I find that his advice on if I'm screaming and so is Chris the only words out of my mouth should be 1,2,3 Timeout. Or just Time Out. It's really been reducing my stress level. Unfortunately, Eric doesn't get as much time to practice the theory. We also had some really good discussion about Choices. By telling Chris, you can put your shoes on, or if you Choose to, you are choosing to be punished by a time out. By letting Chris recognize he has the Power to choose, he will theoretically begin to make wiser choices. Nice in theory. But logic doesn't always work with the illogical. Chris and I did have a good conversation at naptime today. I had wanted to take the boys to the zoo this evening, special late friday hours, but not without naps first. So I told him, you can take a nap, or you can Choose Not to nap and we'll stay home. He told me I choose nap. Again, I went in when I caught him playing. First time I only said that's 1. The second time, I went in and told him, hey this is 2, if you don't want to sleep, what happens. He says Spanking? I said sometimes, but you chose nap, you chose to nap because you wanted to go to the zoo, if you don't nap then there's no zoo. He looked all shocked, rolled over, and went to sleep.
I was impressed (logic worked!). But then he woke up and didn't want to go to the zoo anyway, he wanted to watch Spiderman, and still was grumpy. So we stayed home, probably the wiser decision. It's been a busy week for him. But that's another post. :)