innie,outie...throughie?

Calder and the top notch surgical team did great in surgery yesterday. He now sports an extra belly button that resembles a Grolsh cap with a hole drilled in it through which the food can pass directly to his stomach.

my new belly button

Taryn and I are quite excited with how everything has proceeded but Calder still has a mixed opinion on the whole process. They slowly weaned his pain medication until he woke up and started triggering the ventilator on his own, then they extubated him around 5 pm yesterday.  After being extubated Calder definitely tried to cry but could only manage a sad little whimper. Once he was off the vent and breathing on his own they started the pain medication back up but at a much lower dose and Taryn rocked him back to sleep. Calder is also good to go on being fed again so they should begin to feed him through the button today, meaning he'll once again get that full feeling in his stomach. He'll get a couple of meals of Pedialyte (sugar water) before we switch and test out how he responds to Taryn's "now in dairy-free" milk.  Finally, the best news of all is that we're thinking Calder is only about ten days away from his triumphant homecoming!