Just as an update on our DS: There was an opening earlier in the summer, and we had approximately zero minutes to decide whether to take it, so we went with it.
It was at Children's Hospital in Seattle, and I have to give them props. Everyone was very kind to us and DS, and very gentle with him, and the doctors explained everything to us without condescension. The whole team introduced themselves before the surgery and told us their roles. Also, no one touched his foreskin -- hooray! During surgery, I was directed to a dedicated pumping room I could use to help with how swollen with milk I was. And when DS came out of surgery, they left us alone in a darkened room to breastfeed for hours while DS napped and fully awakened from the anesthesia. Seriously, they didn't bother us once -- very nice.
The one thing I really didn't appreciate was the overly restrictive guidelines regarding fasting from breastmilk before surgery -- 8 hours. Since that's way over the recommended time from the Am. Society of Anesth., I went ahead and followed the ASA's guidelines instead, not that I'm recommending that for anyone else. I'm planning to write the hospital a thank-you letter that includes a request to change their bm guidelines on npo.
references:
http://www.kellymom.com/health/illne...y-surgery.html
http://www.asahq.org/Newsletters/200...atric0200.html
The surgeon made two small incisions, one in the bellybutton and one in the scrotum. They're barely noticeable, particularly the bellybutton one. DS had no second testicle -- the surgeon said that the blood supply had been cut off to it at some point (he theorized that it was during birth), and so it never developed past a little smear of tissue, which he scraped out of the scrotum to send off for biopsy. We haven't heard back on that, so I'm assuming no news is good news, as expected.
So I have mixed feelings about it. In some ways, the surgery went a little easier than I'd feared, and I was pleasantly surprised by the hospital experience. But it seems a little pointless in retrospect -- there was no testicle to save, so DS could have put off the surgery, perhaps indefinitely, but of course we didn't know that. Could an ultrasound have told us that? I don't know. Was it better to do it now than later? Maybe. Would it have been better not to have done it at all and lived with not knowing? Probably not. But the fact is, he
didn't have an undescended testicle -- he had a descended one that stopped developing. I don't know what the risk factors of cancer are for that vs. undescended, but I imagine they're smaller. This one theoretically wasn't (genetically) abnormal until some accident robbed it of blood supply. And he should still be fertile with the existing testicle.
The recovery was quick although somewhat intense, mostly due to trying to get DS to take pain medication. He's not big on solids or swallowing liquids other than bm from the breast, and the pharmacy couldn't understand our desire for a suppository vs. liquid meds. We eventually mixed the overly sweetened meds into sherbet (very healthy, I know), and when he was in a better mood, pureed prunes and applesauce. It was seriously like pilling a cat otherwise. Screaming, thrashing head, red dye everywhere.
After a couple days, we stopped bothering with the pain meds during the day and used them only at night a few more times if he seemed to be having trouble sleeping through the pain. He was scootching around the day of the surgery. The incision sites healed quickly with minimal oozing and crusting, and the stitches dissolved on their own. We put the prescribed antibiotic ointment on for the first couple weeks or so a few times a day.
We go back for a post-op check next week, so I can let you know if we learn anything different there. But I just thought I'd post in case other people were curious about the procedure. Hope your situation goes/has gone smoothly, *Karen*!