Going Under the Knife

The day finally arrived.  Big changes were coming to such a small little girl, and we were all excited for the end results.  For the last year and a half, Malia has had a lower than normal voice and been getting sick a little too often for our comfort.  After talking with her pediatrician at her last well child check up, he referred her to an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor who scoped her and said her adenoids were almost covering her nasal passage and her tonsils were not much better.  She gave us the info we needed and we decided to get them both removed.  We knew something was wrong and it needed to be fixed or there could be serious repercussions later down the road.  So we scheduled 1 month ago for today.  We really didn't talk to her about it until about a week ago when we attended a "Pre-op Hop" to help kids who are prepping for surgery could get themselves acclimated with the surroundings and equipment that was going to be used on them.  Amy her helper was amazing.  She was really thorough, gave her a doll to decorate, instruments to test out and even gave her the mask that they were going to use on her so she could practice at home.  She was actually excited to go and use the things she had been practicing with.  Last night, we went out to eat at IHOP because it was going to be the last real meal she was going to be able to eat for a couple of weeks and she wanted hamburger and fries AND juice (go figure).  We wanted to have her voice on record to see if there was a difference after she healed so we videoed her at IHOP.  However, she had way to much sugar yesterday and so she was acting really goofy and making her voice higher for part of it, oh well, we tried.

She realllllly wanted juice. 

 Grandma was even able to come down to help out with the rest of the kids so Randy and I could be with Malia the whole day.  (can you see a theme here with the juice).

 We were scheduled to be at the hospital at 7 AM and since we weren't going to the one right down the hill from us, we had to be up at 5:30.  We were a little tired.  But she is still smiling.

Eah and Mom before surgery.

 

I just had to get one more vid. of her beforehand, cuz who knows what was going to happen after.

How quickly it can change though.  Here she is about 20 minutes after she came out of surgery, man that anaesthesia was not her favorite.  She was thrashing and wailing and gnashing her teeth.  It was sooo sad to see her like this.  Her doctor said that her tonsils were actually worse than what she thought.  That when she went in there, they were "kissing" which meant they were actually touching each other when she was laying down.  So it really was good we decided to do both.

Such a sad little girl.

 She didn't do well in recovery, she could not keep her O2 levels up above 88 and wouldn't drink anything.  The meds that were in her body was just making her act weird and she just wasn't really "there" for a long time.  So, because they needed beds for other surgical patients, they transferred us up to the Pediatric unit to finish recovering and try drinking juice and eating Popsicles.  It was nice to not have people on top of us and have a little privacy.  She slept a lot and whined a lot and ate and drank very little for a long time.  We watched Marley and Me and tried to convince her to drink something.  She eventually got her footing and walked around a bit and we found the playroom.  At which point we realized she needed more pain meds and gave her the option of drinking her meds and getting the IV out or keeping it in and getting the meds put into her IV.  She really hated that IV and probably would've done anything to get that thing out.  So she took her meds and proceeded to spit it out, so we tried a different med and she drank it up.  She was soo happy to be free of that stupid tube.  We went down to the playroom again and gave her a different juice and got a few sips out of her.  It wasn't until this person

 showed up and convinced her that the sooner she drank her juice the quicker she could get out of there (which she apparently didn't hear the 50 million times before that was said by me and Randy and every other nurse out there).  Thanx a million Andrea, you Da Bomb!!!! 

She had fun with the play room toys, especially anything she could push around.  The wagon soon became the big hit.

 And of course I had to get the backside hospital gown shot.  It was too perfect.

 Sorry I couldn't resist another one.

 So after 7 hours of absolute fun, we were able to go home.  She made out like a bandit.  In the surgical wing, Amy brought her a quilt made by the Project Linus group along with a stuffed duck (which by the way worked wonders in recovery, she loved having it rubbed on her skin).  Then in the Peds unit she had a fleece blanket, beanie baby bear, sippy cup and pillowcase waiting for her. Andrea brought a new baby doll for her.  Oh and of course Grandma had to spoil her a little get her a Fur Real puppy, Toy Story 3 and have the kids give her a new Barbie.  Maybe she'll want to have surgery again, hopefully not.

The crazy thing is, she almost seems back to normal.  Her post op instructions told her to be on bed rest the next 3 days and light activity after that, HA!  That's not going to happen.  She wants to eat real food sooo bad and has no desire to sit still, cuz she knows if she does she will fall asleep, and of course who would want to do that?  We caught her with a stolen bag of Cheerios trying to stuff her mouth.  This is going to be a trying 2 weeks.  I'm just grateful she has done so well, except for the little hiccup recovering.  I'm so happy we got it done now when she can recover quickly and not when she's a teen or older and completely miserable the entire time.  I'm grateful for amazing technology.  Which reminds me, I need to get my Grateful Turkey up and going for the month.