Anna Surgery Update

Anna's surgery this past Friday went great!  Thank you all for your calls, texts, cards, flowers and most importantly prayers.  It was so comforting during an extremely stressful time.  Here's the rundown on how things went-

Thursday afternoon Duke called and said Anna would be first up for surgery on Friday.  We needed to be at the hospital no later than 6am. I spent most of Thursday evening running around packing and taking pictures of Anna, knowing this would be her last night as a happy camper for a while.

So sweet!

And then we put her NAM in for the last time!! She hated it as usual, but we celebrated the end of the NAM!

We all went to bed around 11pm and Chris got back up at 1:30am to give her a bottle since she wasn't allowed to have anything to eat after 2am.  I woke up of course and stayed awake until 4:00am, then it was time to get up at 4:30, lovely.  We left the house around 5:15am and headed to Duke.

We let Anna put her hands in her mouth and mess with the NAM since it didn't really matter anymore :)

Upon arriving at Duke we checked Anna in and they gave her a bear to make her feel better.  Anna LOVED it- I have never seen her so interested in a stuffed animal before!  It instantly made her smile which calmed all of our nerves.

 

 

Then they called us back to the pre-op area.  Only me, Chris and Anna were allowed at this point so the grandmothers said their goodbyes. We put Anna in her hospital gown and the anestesiaology team came by to see if we had any questions.  Then Dr. Marcus came to see us and he walked us through the surgery and said it was about time to get started.  The anestialogist came back and took Anna from us.  I was SO sad- it was hard to give her away.

 Those rosy NAM cheeks.  I can't wait for her skin to heal.

We left Anna around 7:30am and went to grab some breakfast.  We got our first call at 8:36am that surgery had just started, and then again at 9:30, and 10:30 with updates and finally at 11:30am we got a call that Dr. Marcus wanted to speak to us in the consult area.  I was so nervous!  Dr. Marcus walked in like nothing had ever happened, cracked open a soda and said "the surgery was a home run, she looks great!" PHEW what a relief!  I said "so she looks good?"  He said "oh yeah, I expect we will be showing her off!"  Thank goodness!  We talked for 5-10 mins and then he said we should be able to see Anna soon.  After another few minutes they let us know that she was in recovery and we could go back and be with her. 

 

When we headed back to recovery  I was almost shaking I was so nervous to see her.  She looked beautiful!  I had been warned that seeing her come off anesthesia might be the hardest part, and it was.  She was in and out of consciousness, screaming and you could tell she was just so scared and in pain and there was nothing I could do other than hold her hand.  Not to mention the entire recovery area was so stressful and loud- beeping monitors, crying babies.  I was way overstimulated!

The nurse started giving her IV pain medicine and speech came to see us to help us give her a bottle.  We were required to give her water first and if her stomach tolerated it and she didn't throw up within 30 mins then we could try again with milk.  Anna did NOT like the water... she aspirated and her O2 levels dropped and they had to give her oxygen.  I felt like we were back in the NICU again.  Speech then wanted us to wait to feed her again, possibly until the next day.  That seemed a little too conservative and we knew that would mean 2 nights in the hospital, so we let Anna calm down and then tried again in a few hours.  She did much better.  Once her painwas  under control they let me hold Anna and they put us in a wheelchair and rolled us across the hospital to our room.  When I saw it I thought, ummm I seriously have to sleep here?!  Anything for our sweet Anna!

Once we got to our room we were allowed to have visitors again.

For the next 12 hours we really just tried to stay on top of pain medication, antibiotics and feeding.  All of the nurses were wonderful and so helpful!  No one really got any sleep because almost every hour of the night she needed a medicine or needed to have her vitals taken.

 

Not exactly the Ritz-Carlton...

 We did have a lovely view of the Duke Chapel from our room

 

 Saturday around 6:30am the Plastics Team came by to see Anna.  There were about 10 of them... I felt like I was on Grey's Anatomy.  They thought Anna looked great and had met their requirement for drinking milk so they were planning to draw up her discharge orders. I went down the hall to the Ronald McDonald House room to grab some snacks and coffee.  The volunteer was so sweet and I was impressed that they even had shower facilities in the room (I will definitely be using them next time).  I was an ADPi and Ronald McDonald House was our dedicated charity.  I never imagined that one day I would be the one with a child in the hospital...I told her we would see her again in 6 months when we are back for palate surgery (already dreading it...).  BUT being on the pediatric floor made us so thankful for Anna and her condition.  She was by far the most "well" child on the floor.  The 2 rooms next to us had Christmas decorations and get well cards posted to the doors.  You could tell those children had been there a long time and were probably not leaving anytime soon :( Very sad.

 

Heading home! She has to wear these arm braces called "No No's" for 2 weeks

 

We arrived home around noon on Saturday and thankfully Renny was still in town for another few hours so Chris and I were able to take a nap. Then the fun really started...

 

Anna's medication schedule

 We were up most of the day and night trying to get her to feed and stay on top of the pain medications.  She aspirated again which was scary, so Chris got the oxygen out to help her.  Apparently the breathing tube she had during surgery really aggravated her lungs and throat and so swallowing/breathing etc. is tough the first few days after surgery.  She sounds really congested, but that's normal as well. Hoping each day gets a little better!

 

Resting in her favorite Boppy Pillow- nice to be home!

 

 

Before and After Pic.  I think the most amazing part is the nose! If we hadn't used the NAM her nose would be much more flat.

 

One last sweet pic we took today!  We are loving her new face (but miss her old one as well)

 

It's going to be an interesting week.  Chris is staying home all week to take care of her while I work.  On Friday (at 6am again) we will go back to Duke to get her stitches removed. Unfortunately they have to put her back under but it should just take 15 or so minutes and we can go home the same day. Will keep you updated!