Well, the day finally came where Nikolai had to have surgery. He was born with ABS, which is Amniotic Banding Syndrome. In short, his right hand was fused together...well, at least 3 of his fingers. We were supposed to have the surgery a while back, but, he couldn't seem to gain enough weight to undergo anesthesia.

So, on Tuesday...he went under. Let me tell you what..I did not sleep the night before. The morning of, I just prayed for peace. God delivered. Nikolai was laughing with all of the nurses and flirting. It cracked me up. He had a crowd in there just watching his antics. It was hard to see him go down the hall to the surgery room. But, as he passed everyone, he made the spiderman fingers and pretended to put spider webs all over everyone. Again...he was hamming it up. It could be that he was a little funnier because they gave him so calming medicine.

The surgery was about 2 1/2 hours. When we got to him, he was crying pretty hard. Mind you, they basically broke his fingers apart and reconstructed 2 of them. He will only have 4 fingers. He was angry about his hand. It was wrapped up in a bandage and had a huge sock on it. Then, he happened to look under the sheets and was really mad. He had also a circumcision. As strange as this may sound, they needed the skin for grafting on his hand. A side note: I don't think that I will tell him that when he is older. He won't appreciate that too much :) But, when he looked under the sheets...he threw his hands in the air and with such exasperation said "OH MAN!! MY WEINER HAS A BOO-BOO" and then dramatically slammed his hands down on the side of the bed. I had to turn my head because I was laughing. The way he said that was hilarious. But, his pain was not. He was in pain.

When we took him home, we were in shock how great he was doing. He woke up yesterday and was acting like nothing happened. Then, around 9:00am, he started feeling really bad. He had a rough day. Last night, he broke out with shingles again. He had it last week. Our pediatrician said that they had never seen a child that young have shingles. So, now he is really ticked off.

Today was hard on us both. I couldn't seem to comfort him and he couldn't get comfortable. He is itching to death from the shingles and they hurt, and his hand hurts and his other part hurts. They gave him some pain medicine, but, it jacks him up pretty hard. Instead of resting, he is rocking back and forth and is very uncomfortable. Please pray for him that his recovery will be swift.

Hope you all are well!!