Surgery

Recently Chris had surgery on his nose to fix his very deviated septum. And for his follow-up appointment I had to drive him since he was all drugged up on pain meds. Clara also came with us and while we were there I was asking the nurse about getting children's tonsils and adnoids removed. Clara had NEVER been a good sleeper and I feel like I have tried everything. It has been so exhausting. And recently I had been looking for any kind of reason or answer to why she still doesn't sleep through the night. I had always noticed that she would snore when she slept and even stop breathing occasionally. It used to really scare me when she was younger. So I told the nurse these things and she suggested that the P.A. take a look at her while we were there to see if she needed her tonsils or adnoids out. Turns out they were pretty huge! So we scheduled surgery for a few weeks out, I wanted to get it done as soon as possible considering I was around 34 weeks pregnant and recovery was expected to take two weeks. It was really important to me to be there for Clara afterwards, I did not want her to get surgery and me have the baby and not be able to be there for her.

Well later that week Chris went on a business trip. While he was gone I had a doctors appointment with the O.B. I went in and was dilated to a two and 70% effaced and the doctor said I needed to take it easy so I could keep the baby in long enough to make it to 37 weeks. Well that did not work so well with Clara's surgery. If I did have the baby at 37 weeks I would not be there for all of her recovery. So that day I called the E.N.T. doctor to see if there was ANY possible way to get Clara in sooner. They called me back and told me they could do it that weekend! So Chris got home on Thursday and Clara went in for surgery on Friday.

I was so incredibly stressed about her having surgery. I think the worst thing is to see your child in pain and this surgery is a painful one. She is still just so little and it is hard to try to explain to her that she is going to have an owie because she doesn't understand why. Plus I was just stressing that it would traumatize her right before the baby came which is traumatic as it is. And I was almost sad that the last bit of time we got to spend with just her and I would be her in pain. I just wanted her to know how special she is to me and how much I love her. But luckily surgery went really well. Turns out she had a lot of infection in her adnoids so it was a really good thing she got those out as well.

She had a lot of fun playing with the toys while waiting to go into surgery.

This is her trying to stay awake and sitting up in the wagon as they wheeled her back into surgery. They gave her a sedative to make parting with us much easier. It worked! We were actually laughing at her because in the waiting room after they gave her the medicine, she just started staring at things and could not keep her balance AT ALL. She would just stare at the floor and say "what's that?" It was so funny to see her trying so hard to stay upright it the wagon. She kept tipping over and hitting the sides (I felt a little bad for laughing since I was also hoping that she didn't have any bruises from the bumps), it was really quite funny to watch.

I did better than I thought I would watching her disappear to go have surgery. It was after that was the hardest to see. I walked back after surgery and just heard screaming and a child asking for mommy. But I really wasn't sure that it was Clara because it didn't sound like her voice. Turns out it was, she woke up very upset and just wanted me. I wanted to cry when I saw her. She was all hooked up to tubes and still drowsy. But she just sounded like she was in so much pain. And she kept choking on her words. Luckily I was able to just hold her while they wheeled the bed behind us. She was a very miserable little girl and that was probably the hardest thing I have had to see, just knowing I could do nothing for her.

She did pretty well when the pain medication had kicked in fully.

But then she had her down times again where she was in a lot of pain. They wanted her to stay for at least 8 hours so that they could watch the bleeding. Luckily my Mom was there with me. I don't know what I would have done without her. (Chris was working).

Recovery was really hard. She was in a lot of pain. Even giving her medication was a nightmare, we had to pin her down while she would scream and gag. But eventually it got better and better. It did take about two weeks for her to be back to herself..only she wasn't her usual self. She already started sleeping through the night! Glorious!! And she was in general just much happier. She wasn't so moody, because before I must admit she was a pretty moody little girl. But she was happier all around. And another huge difference was the fact that she actually started eating! Before the surgery she hardly ate anything! She basically survived off of milk. But after she started eating so well!

She also started wanting to wear my shirts for some reason, so here she is cuddling with Daddy in her PJ's with my shirt over top.

It was one of the hardest things I have done to see Clara go through surgery, but looking back it was all worth it. It was exactly what we needed and just in time!