Thursday, August 11, 2011

Journey's surgery (and other updates)

Sorry for not posting sooner, we've been a little busy around here!

Journey had her exploratory eye surgery yesterday and did great. I took her in by myself and Eric worked from home so Vivi and Amira (Vivi's best friend who is staying with us) could sleep in, and my mom came over to play with them and give them lunch.

Journey fell asleep in the car, but woke up when we got to the hospital. I loaded our stuff into the double stroller and we headed inside. First we had to check in and get her hospital bracelet and my pass into the children's surgery area. Then a guy came and collected a group of us and took us up to another waiting room. By that point Journey was getting hungry and trying to go through my bag, because I always bring snacks with us. It wasn't long before we got called back and they weighed and measured her and took her temp, then took us to a room where a nurse came in and explained the procedure and how everything works, and gave us a hospital outfit to put on her. It again was a struggle for me and 2 nurses to hold her down for the dilation drops.

We did some waiting, then the anesthesiologist came in to talk to me about his part of the procedure. They really go out of their way to ease a parents' mind. Then we waited. And waited. And waited...the surgery was supposed to be at 9:30, they didn't come get her until almost 11. I got to take her into the operating room and try to comfort her while they got her ready. They put a flavored chapstick or something inside the mask so she fell asleep to strawberry banana. I made sure to mention that she's a lot stronger than she looks before they started doing anything to her, and after about 10 seconds of trying to get the mask on her face and the electrode thing on her chest, the anesthetist assistant said "you weren't kidding!" When she fell asleep, they let me give her a kiss, then a nurse took me back to our room to wait.

About 20 minutes later, the eye doctor came in to talk to me. He said that the surgery had gone well, Journey did great, and that she doesn't have glaucoma or pressure or anything bad in her little eye. She has all the parts she should have in there, but the lens isn't in the right spot. She can see out of it, but not very well. He mentioned that it sees better than her other eye, which surprised me. He isn't sure if he wants to do anything with her little eye, he wants to bring her case to some other doctors and talk about it and he'll get back to us in the next couple of weeks. I'm expecting that he'll say "just leave it for now".

Not long after that, they brought her in to me. She was still sleeping and still on the iv. When she started waking up she was groggy and and her iv was giving her a lot of pain, but after they took that out, gave her some medicine for the pain, and brought her a cup of apple juice, she was a happy camper.

Here's a picture from before the surgery, I had just put on her hospital clothes. You can tell she's a little wary of everything going on, but Sealy helps her feel better :)


She did a lot of sleeping yesterday and we made her eat slow and light, but this morning she woke up looking and acting like her normal self.

Overall, a successful surgery, and a good trial run for her first hand surgery in September.

Also, we went in on Tuesday to the pediatrician to go over Journey's lab results. She is a little anemic but the doctor thinks that is just from the nutrition she had in Ethiopia and expects that to get better. She was also diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and we got a prescription to help monitor that. And I was able to convince her to write us a referral to a genetics physician. I had requested it and she came in telling me that she doesn't think she needs it, but I had one piece of evidence that even we didn't notice until she had been home a few weeks, and she said we should definitely get her genetics done. Lots of tests and appointments and possible diagnoses to check off, but the pediatrician is very happy with how she is adjusting.


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1 comment:

  1. Awww, I'm glad her surgery went so well. When Dr. Giles did my eye surgery, I brought my stuffed Shamu the whale, and they even put a hospital bracelet around his tail!

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