4.24.13 Post Surgery

Daddy carrying Aimee back to surgery.

What a long week yesterday! Oh wait, I mean day. Going into yesterday's surgery, we were already pretty sleep deprived. Aimee has not been sleeping well lately. She commonly gets her days and nights confused and will stay up playing and talking throughout the night. Lately though, she has been crying and crying all night long. Not every night, but more and more frequently. Wish we knew why. She does better if we hold her, which is amazing! I am stunned and blessed that her cries gradually become less intense when she is in my arms. Makes my heart glad.

Thrilled as we are to hold her and to try to get some sleep with her, it meant going into yesterday in a less than ideal condition. Aimee was energetic though. :)

Tilly bear had his own bracelet.

The surgery itself went really well. It only took about 45 minutes in the morning and then we spent the rest of the day waiting for her to wake up, which we anticipated. We did not expect that she would have difficulty with and spend into the evening on oxygen. We finally decided that we would spend the night at the hospital. Although we typically avoid this in every way, we couldn't take her off of oxygen.

Sleeping in the recovery room on oxygen.

Her nurses in recovery were not very experienced with transferring a patient to a regular room while on oxygen and monitors. It took a couple hours to get everything ready. Finally we got Aimee transferred into a beautiful room full of sunlight in a nice quiet corner. Almost immediately, it seemed, she started to perk up. Her respirations stabilized and we were able to turn off her oxygen while maintaining fairly decent levels of saturation.

Perking up in her sunlit room.

So, we said that we wanted to go home. :) Although keeping her on monitors overnight would have been good, we wanted to care for her ourselves and help her get a good rest if possible. At least better than she would get being constantly checked, beeped at, prodded, ect.

We kept a close eye on her through the night. It was a long night, but we were at least at home. She definitely is still having some difficulty with her breathing. We are fairly certain the main cause is drainage from the surgery site. She is gagging on it constantly and thus we are limited in fluids and food intake. The doctor said it will take 8 weeks to completely heal and not to evaluate results until after that point. The good news is, she doesn't seem to be having a lot of pain from the surgery itself.

It may be a long rest of the week, but we are happy to fight that battle from our own living room. Thank you to everyone who prayed, texted, called, and facebooked us. We so value all of the prayers and love for Aimee.

Please pray for:
-the drainage to slow so that we can increase fluid intake for hydration and calories
-continued low pain
-rest! For Aimee and for me! Okay, and for Ed too. :)