We went in this morning and checked her into Children's Surgery. You can tell she is in good humor, has no clue anything is going on, and is happy to run around in her jammies and act crazy. She entertained the others in the waiting area by forcing out two really good toots. I was mortified, but she thought it was funny. OK, I thought it was funny, too, but I pretended to be mortified.
We finally got checked into the the pre-op area where she was weighed and measured. We were put in an exam room and we met with the nurse/patient coordinator and filled out paper work. We got a gown to dress her in. Child Life came by and brought in some toys for her to distract her. She also watched a lot of PBS Kids. The TV had an adjustable arm and she finally ended up sitting in the bed to watch TV. We me the anesthesiologist and filled out some more paper work.
Ten minutes before the surgery was to start, they came in and gave her "Princess Juice." She got very calm and focused on her toy. Then Dr. Musgrove came in to talk to us and give us an opportunity for last minute questions. I asked her how often she does the surgeries and how many she has done. She says she does about 5 to 6 a week and has been in practice for 23 years. And this is pretty much the only surgery she does...all in the pediatric population. Amelia was in very experienced hands.
Meanwhile, the "Princess Juice" was really kicking in and I threatened to tickle her and she fell back into the pillow giggling and kicking her legs in the air. I never touched her. She laid on her side and played with the electronic book that Child Life gave her. Not more than a few minutes later, a couple of people came and rolled her pff and she never looked back.
They ended up having to intubate her because her tidal readings on her breathing (depth of breath) were not good enough that they felt comfortable with her breathing on her own. Of course this sent me into an absolute panic attack and when we were let back to see her I was staring at the monitors and scrutinizing every number and wave on the screen and driving the nurse and Todd crazy about liter flow and spacing of her heart beats and infrequency of respirations per minute. She was on 6 liters of O and that really freaked me out, but I was assured EVERYONE got that much because it helped rid the body of the anesthesia.
They finally took the face mask off of her and she satted fine on her own while she was still out cold. They told me they gave her a super low dose of morphine because she reacted very quickly to it. There was a funny misunderstand with the anesthesiologist because I thought she said they gave her the morphine interoccularly --- and she said interoperationally --- and I was like --- you injected morphine into her eyeball?!?!? She was not the same anesthesiologist that prepped us, so I was so confused as to who she was anyway.
Anyway, Amelia was pretty slow to come around. They put washcloths on her face and offered her a cold popsicle. She seemed to perkup then. She had her eyes totally shut and she leaned forward with her eyes still closed and took a huge bite on it and sucked on it. She looked drunk and couldn't sit up on her own I had to hold her head up so it wouldn't fall back and prop her chest up so she wouldn't lean forward. I thought we had video of this, but when we got home we discovered that Todd wasnot recording. It had all of us in giggles. Every now and then her eyes would fly open and she'd look at us and fuss and then fall back asleep.
We finally got discharged and we came home and took naps. She has now woken up and continues to have intermittent outbursts of fussing. I think she is super hungry and will be in a better mood once we feed her through her g-tube.
Her right eye especially is red and I can tell that the left eye looks straighter already. We have a follow up appointment a week from Monday. We are to give her antibiotics to combat anything that may set in and give her an infection and we can give her ibuprofin or motrin if we feel like she is in pain. So far she seems like she is handling everything pretty well.
3 comments:
I remember from when Mia had very minor eye surgery as a baby that the hardest part (aside from waiting for the surgery while her tummy rumbled and she kept repeating "cookie, cookie") was her waking up slowly from the anesthesia.
Glad she made it through ok. Hugs and kisses to Amelia!
I thought it was Emily with the blocked tear duct...and then the cookie, cookie comment would really make sense!
When Clara had her toes removed, I held it together really well until it was all done and she was waking up from the anesthesia. She was so pitiful and so zonked out. Look forward to seeing how well the surgery works and what it means for her sight!
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