Abby was great this morning during pre-op and won over the nurses and anesthesiologist right away. After the anesthesiologist started the anesthesia through the ventilator, Abby promptly popped the circuit off in typical Abby fashion! :) I envisioned all of the doctors and nurses falling over unconscious and had to stifle a giggle. That's Abby! We held her hands after they put it back on again.
She went to sleep no problem, and then I went back to the waiting room to...wait. It was really crowded and at times I started feeling like I was going a bit stir crazy. The Game Show Network was on TV really loud, one person in the waiting room kept calling out answers pretty obnoxiously, two people were working on Calculus together and discussing binomials and coefficients, and I feel like this is all just taking forever! (In reality, it took a lot less time than we thought, but it seemed like forever!)
We were able to see Abby at around 11:30 and she was so pitiful. She was writhing in pain and was just miserable. They had her on a pain pump that we could click if it got really bad. For a while, she would sleep for about 20 minutes and then need more. They decided to give her some Tylenol and that seemed to really help. She slept for about 2 hours and woke up more settled.
The IV pump started acting funny, so the nurse tried to flush Abby's IV. Sure enough, it had blown. She spent the next hour or so working on getting Abby cleared to do all oral pain meds, which meant Abby had no pain meds during that time. It was rough! Once they sent the orders and they gave her a new Oxycodon and Tylenol cocktail, she felt much better. :)
So....onto the results of the surgery:
* The palate was an "easy" repair and he said it went very smoothly. She even has a uvula now! (It's a useless body part, but she has one!)
* Our ENT was able to get tubes in her ears after a few tries--hooray!! He found that there was fluid in both ears, but especially the right one--which was infected. No one ever knew because we could never see her ear drum, she doesn't get fevers (ever), and she hasn't been rubbing it excessively. Who knows how long she has had it, poor thing!
* The ABR hearing test showed that Abby's left ear is perfectly fine. The right ear was a little off, but he thinks it's because of all the fluid. He wants to have her retested (with a regular test, not an ABR) in 6 months to make sure.
* The ENT took a look at Abby's airway and said it looks fine, but it's still small. He doesn't think she will be having the jaw distraction. He did change the length of her trach so that now she has a pediatric trach, as opposed to the neonatal size she had.
All of the doctors assured us that residents would not be doing Abby's surgery, and we especially liked the anesthesiologist she had. She called Abby by name, and even told everyone in the OR that she goes by Abby. She talked to her the whole time and was very sweet to me as well. We really appreciated how good she was.
I was surprisingly calm through the whole thing and didn't even cry! I felt very at ease with our surgeons and anesthesiologist, which helped. All of your praying did too! :)
We went back to RMH for a super-fast dinner, grabbed my stuff, and then Matt dropped me back off here for the night. Abby slept the entire time we were gone and is still sleeping. I hope she still sleeps through the night after all the snoozing she's done! I think she will--she's had a rough day. :(
Thanks so much for all your prayers!!
PS: Sorry for the delay in posting. We had a ton of doctors visiting us all day long. I started this several different times, but never really had a chance to finish it.
She went to sleep no problem, and then I went back to the waiting room to...wait. It was really crowded and at times I started feeling like I was going a bit stir crazy. The Game Show Network was on TV really loud, one person in the waiting room kept calling out answers pretty obnoxiously, two people were working on Calculus together and discussing binomials and coefficients, and I feel like this is all just taking forever! (In reality, it took a lot less time than we thought, but it seemed like forever!)
We were able to see Abby at around 11:30 and she was so pitiful. She was writhing in pain and was just miserable. They had her on a pain pump that we could click if it got really bad. For a while, she would sleep for about 20 minutes and then need more. They decided to give her some Tylenol and that seemed to really help. She slept for about 2 hours and woke up more settled.
The IV pump started acting funny, so the nurse tried to flush Abby's IV. Sure enough, it had blown. She spent the next hour or so working on getting Abby cleared to do all oral pain meds, which meant Abby had no pain meds during that time. It was rough! Once they sent the orders and they gave her a new Oxycodon and Tylenol cocktail, she felt much better. :)
So....onto the results of the surgery:
* The palate was an "easy" repair and he said it went very smoothly. She even has a uvula now! (It's a useless body part, but she has one!)
* Our ENT was able to get tubes in her ears after a few tries--hooray!! He found that there was fluid in both ears, but especially the right one--which was infected. No one ever knew because we could never see her ear drum, she doesn't get fevers (ever), and she hasn't been rubbing it excessively. Who knows how long she has had it, poor thing!
* The ABR hearing test showed that Abby's left ear is perfectly fine. The right ear was a little off, but he thinks it's because of all the fluid. He wants to have her retested (with a regular test, not an ABR) in 6 months to make sure.
* The ENT took a look at Abby's airway and said it looks fine, but it's still small. He doesn't think she will be having the jaw distraction. He did change the length of her trach so that now she has a pediatric trach, as opposed to the neonatal size she had.
All of the doctors assured us that residents would not be doing Abby's surgery, and we especially liked the anesthesiologist she had. She called Abby by name, and even told everyone in the OR that she goes by Abby. She talked to her the whole time and was very sweet to me as well. We really appreciated how good she was.
I was surprisingly calm through the whole thing and didn't even cry! I felt very at ease with our surgeons and anesthesiologist, which helped. All of your praying did too! :)
We went back to RMH for a super-fast dinner, grabbed my stuff, and then Matt dropped me back off here for the night. Abby slept the entire time we were gone and is still sleeping. I hope she still sleeps through the night after all the snoozing she's done! I think she will--she's had a rough day. :(
Thanks so much for all your prayers!!
PS: Sorry for the delay in posting. We had a ton of doctors visiting us all day long. I started this several different times, but never really had a chance to finish it.
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