Natalie had her surgery yesterday.
Neither Roby or I got much sleep the night before, I'd say about 5 total hours between us. I was up at 3 so I could eat a little something before getting ready for the day and heading out. We left the house at 4:45 am to take a friend to the airport before getting to the hospital at 5:45.
We got checked in, and went to her room, where we spent the next hour and a half talking to various people and waiting. One guy came in and showed Natalie a bunch of pictures of things that she would see during her stay. I had already shown her some pictures, but some of the things he talked about really helped. He showed her what the actual tubes for her ears look like, what the operating room looks like, and most importantly, what the IV was and why she needed it. She was not happy about this last one, but I'm glad she saw it beforehand. He also let her choose what kind of wrap she wanted on her hand around the IV, then gave her some to "practice" with.
A little after 7, the nurse came in and have her some medicine to drink that would help her "relax" and get ready to be taken back. This stuff worked fast! She started slowing down and slurring her words in less than 15 minutes. Another 15 min later she was completely out of it. She kept trying to get up and wondered why she couldn't, she would look at us and kind of smile when we talked to her, asked over and over if she could have something to drink, and was having a really hard time getting words out of her mouth . At one point, she was staring at the blank wall for a good five minutes. I felt bad, and it made me nervous, but some of the things she was doing and trying to say was quite entertaining. It broke my heart though when she slurred, "Mommy, can you come with me?"
At 7:50 the Anesthesiologist and an OR nurse came in to talk to us and to take her back. He was a great doctor and was great with Nat. As they were going out of the room with her, he called her "pumpkin" which is one of our nicknames for her. It made me smile before I started crying. I know tubes and adenoid remocal common procedures, but I couldn't help being scared and nervous.
At 8:15 her doctor came in and told us that she was done and everything looked good. We were amazed by how quick she had done everything! She took the "pebble" our which she said was over half an inch long!!! I can't believe how big it was for several doctors to not notice it. Both tubes went in her ears, and her adenoids were removed. She said that Natalie would be in the recovery room for at least half an hour before they brought her back to us.
About twenty minutes later I heard Nat crying as they wheeled her down the hall. They said that they couldn't console her as she was crying (screaming), "I want my mommy!" over and over and she
really didn't like her IV.
I hopped in bed with her, telling her over and over that I was there...this helped some, but she was still extremely upset/scared/disoriented. She said her throat hurt (mostly due to the intubation tube) or that she wanted the IV out and would start screaming. Then would calm down for a minute or two. This went on for quite some time until the nurse asked the anesthesiologist for something to help her relax. She came back in with morphine. I am so thankful for morphine. Although I tried my best to help her relax, she needed something to help her until the medications wore off. Not long after, she was asleep--on and off for the next three/five hours (I lost track of time, I just wanted to get her home). Because she inherited my genes, she threw up three/four times which was another reason why we couldn't leave.
Finally I asked one of the nurses if she could eat some crackers as it had been almost 20 hours since she had put anything in her stomach. She replied, "I really don't want her eating anything if she can't keep water down. She is staying hydrated with the IV. Wait another 15 minutes or so then try to give her water again." We weren't exactly thrilled with this answer. I would be nauseous too if I could only have water for 20 hours...and thats without other meds messing with my system!
A little while later, the nice nurse that had been looking after Nat since we checked in, came in and asked if we wanted to try and give her some crackers. Um...Yes Please!!! I told her that we had asked and was told no, she laughed and said that the other nurse was not nice (I'm not going to repeat her exact words here! ;-) ). Nat scarfed down eight saltines and felt much better. An hour and a half later they finally let us discharge.
We left the hospital at 3:30 and went to pick Ethan up from his friends that he went to after summer school. At home, Natalie ate a bunch of random soft things and we watched
Disney's The Kid. I put her to bed at 7:15 and she slept until 7:30 this morning. When she woke up she said her throat hurt a little bit and that she was thirsty. As of right now she feels fine and has been playing all day. I'm very glad she's ok and that we had some great doctors and nurses looking after her!
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I don't know what I would have done without Roby there while she was screaming and so scared. Its scary to not be able to help your child, having his extra support made a world of difference to me! I really hope I don't have to go through this any time soon if he's deployed or on TDY...
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I just went through hundreds of pictures from the last couple months. I still need to upload pictures from three cameras...hopefully I'll start posting some of these later today or tomorrow.
Back in February we decided to get something just for us. New mattresses! We had had the same ones for about ten years and they were very worn out. We went to NFM's clearance center and got these for just over 1/4 the original price. The reason? There was a little smudge of dirt on one corner and one of the carrying handles was torn off on one side. I didn't want to pay $60 to have it delivered, so after some convincing we loaded it up on top of the truck and headed home.
It definitely took a couple weeks to get used to sleeping on (there is absolutely no bounce because it doesn't have springs), but I LOVE it now! And because the inner material doesn't wear out, hopefully we will have it for a long time!
