Surgery cont'd

My mom and I left the operating room to get something to eat (neither of us had any breakfast since Liv couldn't eat...we refused to eat in front of her). I honestly wasn't all that hungry,nor was my mom. My mom was pretty shaken by watching them get Liv ready for her surgery. We each chose bagels, ate quickly and went back up to the waiting room. By this time I really wished I'd thought out the bag packing situation a bit better...everywhere we went, so did our bags, UGH!

Between leaving Liv in the operating room, gathering our bags, grabbing a bite to eat and heading back up to the waiting room only 15 minutes had passed. We sat down in the waiting room for maybe 2 minutes and the receptionist came to tell us Liv was in recovery. Seriously, a 30 minute surgery done in about 15 minutes, crazy. We were lead down the hall to Liv's bed in recovery...we were about halfway there and I heard her. My baby was screaming at the top of her little lungs for her mommy. UGH, my heart just broke to pieces on the spot. I dropped all I was carrying (I'm sure my mom appreciated THAT one) and ran to her. There was somebody holding her and rocking her, but she wanted nothing to do with them and wanted her momma. I've never felt my heart just ache like that before. The moment I had her in my arms, she buried her face into me and just sobbed, I let a few extra tears slip. Before I knew it, she'd calmed and wanted a popsicle. Yep, right out of surgery she was ready for a popsicle, awesome! Later we would find out that was only due to the amount of drugs she was on. She couldn't feel a thing at that point. Her ENT/surgeon came in to inform us the surgery was a success and my little girl no longer had tonsils or adenoids (both were extremely enlarged). BTW, how clever were they to put Liv's IV in AFTER she was asleep for surgery?! I love Children's Hospital, I really do.

After about an hour in recovery we were escorted to her room up on the 7th floor. If you don't know this about Denver Children's Hospital...the 7th floor is also the oncology floor, talk about a powerful and MOVING moment to walk off that elevator. Liv was given her own room (as all are up on this floor) and was placed on this floor due to her even more than normal compromised immune system. After hours of fighting off her meds, she finally fell asleep.


Her surgery bears had already been sent up and were waiting in her bed for her.


So peaceful.


When she woke from this nap, it was anything but pretty. My poor baby was in a cold sweat from pain, screaming because she had feeling back in her little body and once again, crying for momma to hold her. I had no problem with holding her as tight and for as long as she wanted. The nurse was pretty quick with giving her some pain meds orally and in her IV. They were giving her some pretty heavy narcotics as she quickly calmed and was ready to color!

This was followed by her being hungry, so I ordered up some mashed potatoes and green beans for her supper. I made sure to mash up the green beans and gave her a bite, she did fine. The mashed potatoes however, had a slight error somewhere in the preparation process...they were salted. What happened after her first bite of the potatoes went just like you would imagine. She quickly spit it out, recoiled and cried. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, so I tried the potatoes myself and that's when I knew what happened :(. After the potatoes, even if offered a popsicle, she refused. The Dr., nurse and myself talked it over and figured we'd let her rest for the night. She would stay on her IV drip that night to keep hydrated and we'd tackle the food eating again in the morning. Easy enough, right? Wrong.

Once again, I feel this is a good place to pause in the story as we have a bit more to go. SORRY! I should have this post finished by tomorrow (maybe tonight if we call it a night early).

Have a WONDERFUL Fourth of July everyone, stay safe out there!!