Thursday, December 10, 2015

Surgery Time...and a whole lot of waiting!


Pre-Surgery - Someone is getting tried of waiting!
This will be Riley's sixth surgery in her five years of life. Not really fair in her mind, but thank goodness it's available for her. She'll have a palate revision, which involves her palate and throat. We have the best doctor around and he explains it well, I do not. Since this is probably one of the more invasive surgeries she'll be staying overnight at the Hershey's Children's Hospital.

Pre-Surgery - Her brother insisted on staying with her as he is her best entertainer. 
We did a TON of preparing for this surgery. Meaning that we talked with Riley about what to expect.

  • Yes, it'll hurt, but we have medicine that'll help.
  • Yes, you'll feel "weird" when you come out of the surgery, but mommy will be there waiting.
  • Yes, you'll only eat soft foods for 3 weeks, but we'll have fun picking tasty new things to eat.

The waiting was tough as it would be for any child, but it's been much smoother then the previous surgeries. I really think it helped that she was able to understand and knew what to expect. It probably helped that the new Children's hospital is now open. They had so many cool activities to pass the time, plus watching their favorite movies on the big screen.
On our way to surgery with the team.
Riley's surgeon was very happy with the outcome. He met with us prior to the surgery and felt strongly that we should do a slight lip revision while she was under. I guess he was really giving it some thought since our last visit with him. We agreed, though I didn't like that I wasn't able to prepare her for this. She did much better in the recovery room compared to previous surgeries. They allowed me to come back as soon as she was taken out of surgery. She would open her eyes, look for me, then back to sleep. In past surgeries I was not aloud back with her until she was awake, so by the time I got back to her, she was hysterical!

Side note: Her nurse had two adoptive children, one from China! We could've chatted all night. Well, I guess we kinda did. 

Our view from Riley's overnight recovery room. It's hard to see,
but we had a perfect view of the lit sculpture in front of the hospital

Riley was pretty out of it most of the night, but was woken up every few hours for her medication. She was hungry (which she always is) and thirsty pretty quickly, which made the doctors and nurses happy. I got to sleep next to her in a comfy chair/bed. It wasn't horrible. Though my expectations were low. I didn't expect to get any sleep, but I surprisingly did. I think being in super-mommy-mode helped. It exhausted me. Her room had a HUGE flat screen with endless kid's movies, so we watched all her favorites. I turned off the TV sometime in the middle of the night and she woke up and got my attention and pointed at the TV. In a quiet little voice she said, "movie please?" You get anything you want tonight little girl! In these situations limited TV time does not apply. 

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