Natalie's Surgery

I've had technical difficulties with the pics I took of Nat's surgery day but they're on FB.

We dreaded S day for a while. We've been around the block a few times as far as having a sick child, but we never knew of impending hospitalizations months in advance. Knowing what kind of patient my poor baby is (I'm not saying she doesn't have ample reason to be after all that she's been through, but good gravy she can be mean to the nurses) and knowing that every time a medical professional comes near her we have to convince her to let them do whatever it is that they need to do makes us so much more anxious than the average parent. There were also unknown things that made us nervous too, such as whether or not we'd be able to be with her when they put her to sleep and whether or not they were going to put the IV in when she was concious. On top of that we were anxious about driving to Hopkins in the dark because we had to get to preop by 6:45 am. And then there was comforting Natalie, who had no idea what to expect and didn't really even understand why she needed surgery and what was going to happen.

Regardless of all of our reservations, we got there on time and before we knew it we were leaving the waiting room with the childlife specialist. She had spent the better part of the hour explaining the surgery to Nat on her doll, Chrissa. We also met with the urologist and the anesthesiologist beforehand. Roger went with Nat to the operating room because I wasn't sure I could handle watching them put her under. I'm glad it was him because she was resistant and I would have lost it. We went down to the food court and got breakfast. It was a relatively quick procedure and Natalie was soon in recovery. It was scary to see her at first because she was still asleep with her head tilted up from the intubation. Not how parents like to see their baby! She was completely dazed and woozy even after we took her home. She got sick a few times and was drowsy for days.

We weren't expecting such a long recovery period because her doctor promised us she'd be jumping on her trampoline the next day. That was not the case for Natalie. She slept the entire next day. She was in pain more than we expected too. She actually only just went back to school today, 5 days later. We'll know in 6 months, after some testing, if the procedure was successful or if they have to do a much more invasive surgery that requires a long hospital stay... Here's hoping it was a success!