The Ending of a LONG Chapter in Our Journey!

Surgery part THREE (this was a really long time in our lives, yikes!)


So, I think we shall call Surgery day (Dec. 16th 08) day one and go from there.

Day one: Pretty much summed up in the past two postings.

Day two: 12/17/08
This is the day that should be easy breezy and we are to be discharged from the hospital...so LONG as everything goes as planned. In my world, nothing really EVER goes as it should, ha!

That night (from day one to day two) was a long night of no sleep since every 3 hours Liv needed her meds, of course she had trouble going back to sleep, after EACH dose. By sun-rise we're wide awake and Liv's nurse comes to un-hook her IV. They leave the IV in her arm, but stop the drip...just in case. Good thinking.

Breakfast consisted of mashed bananas, applesauce, water and milk. I'm determined that this is going to be a good day. Liv had other plans however, and chose not to eat/drink anything. Nothing. We all let this slide as we figure she is just nervous, and honestly...who could blame her?

Lunch rolls around and yet again...nothing. When I say she refused all food; I mean she sat there, glared from the food to me, crossed her arms and yelled, "NO!" Well, alright....seeing as she isn't taking any foods yet, the doc comes in to give me the good news, we'll be discharged the next day...IF Liv comes around. Deep breaths, this WILL be okay.



Dinner-time. Yep, you guessed it. Still.Not. Eating. UGH! In order to keep her hydrated, Liv gets another type of meal; the IV drip. Finally she goes potty for only the second time that day.


Day Three, 12/18/2008

Another night of no sleep, for the same reasons as the previous night.

Sun rises and just like the day before, Liv is un-hooked from her IV. She goes potty for the first and last time of the day. Yep, just like the day before...nothing, no food and no drink. Ah, this girl has the ability to make me crazy with how stubborn she is!

Three more days pass just the same as these first couple. Nothing but IV fluids and the occasional drink of ice water. Fun.

Day six 12/22/08

We have both HAD it. We. Are. Going. Nuts.
I'm not entirely sure how we've survived this long with any sanity in tact, honestly. We traveled the hospital in the red wagons they have, toured the main floor during the holiday events, went to volunteer gifting events, went from playrooms to playrooms on all different floors, we did crafts, had a LOT of special visitors and we sat around...waiting for Liv to decide to eat. Being in the hospital during the holidays was really a mixed blessing, there were tons of visitors and charity events going on. Honestly, it was one of the most humbling experiences in my life and lead me to volunteer as much as I do today.

Then it happened, that evening the Dr came in to visit us, still in awe of just how stubborn Liv really is. I plead with her to let us go home, I tell her I just KNOW Liv will eat at home where she is comfortable. Doc agrees, under one condition...Liv MUST eat/drink TWO slushies before bed time AND potty. Oh, this is GAME time and I put on my best game face. The nurses and I conspired to make a pretty tasty slushy consisting of crushed popsicles and Sprite. Okay, so they make these all the time for kids, but we all sat around drinking these in front of Liv. yes, two nurses, the Dr and myself sat in Liv's room talking, laughing and going on and on about just how YUMMY these slushy treats were. This seemed to get Liv's attention and she wanted to TRY some of mine. In my mind I was ELATED, but I had to play a little game and tell her, "no way!" I am not sharing this...it's too yummy to be shared! She pouts and looks at me like she cannot believe after all this, I won't share with her. The nurse offers to go make one for Liv, if she REALLY wants one, but she has to drink all of it. Guess what? Game WORKED, Liv finished it AND asked for another! This worked and she went potty!

Day Seven (holy smokes am I tired by this point!) 12/23/08

Doc visits us and Liv is happy as can be, drinking yet ANOTHER slushy. I'm silently wondering how in the world I'm going to get her away from this latest addiction, but I don't even care at this point! We get all her scripts for antibiotics, pain meds and all her Dr.'s orders. The nurses call up a team (a TEAM) of volunteers to bring up red wagons so I can load up all of our stuff and all the gifts that were dropped off by all the holiday well wishers that visited during our stay. This is it.....We are going HOME!






These particular visitors happen to be Cops Fighting Cancer . Funny thing, a couple years later I came to know the founder of this organization and he happens to be one of the greatest people I know! They are a fantastic organization to check out and also help support! :)

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!!

That Wacky Mother's Intuition Strikes Again

Who knew re-visiting the past could break you, emotionally? Just for a bit, but yeesh!

So...we were in the fall of 2007 when I last wrote (about the past anyway).

The remainder of 2007 was pretty uneventful. Well, uneventful by MY terms and the terms of a lot of other FA families. By uneventful, I mean ER trips were about once maybe twice a month and nothing extraordinary, just typical hives, breathing issues (not serious ones though) and colds attacking Liv's respiratory system. The first half of 2008 was similar to the last half of 2007. Usual ER trips, missed work, lost job due to missing work for Liv (No matter, I didn't want that job anyway *sticks out tongue* and quickly found another *THANKFULLY* :) ). Something stood out though during all this "normalcy", I kept hearing the doctors remark about her tonsils. At first, I thought nothing of this, but after about the billionth time hearing it (that's a lie, it was more like the 6th time), I couldn't shake it from my brain.

Late summer 2008, I took Liv to see the pediatrician. Once again, in hopes of getting that "ever elusive referral, but this time to an ENT. After all the comments about Liv's tonsils and looking at them myself (hello HUGE!), I decided an expert needed to see these suckers. Once again (gosh, I wish this wasn't such a repetitive scenario), I was told I was wrong. The pediatrician took a look and said they were large, yes, but nothing should really be done about them. He told me that while Tonsils were at one time removed at the drop of the hat, they really try to avoid that now. I was also advised that unless her tonsils were touching, they wouldn't see them as a threat to Liv's health. I was not about to go through this nonsense yet again. Remember the whole "do NOT underestimate a mother's intuition?" Yeah, file this situation under THAT. I'm pretty sure I sighed...loudly; I do this right before a confrontation that is going to be uncomfortable for me. At this point I recall standing up and saying, "my child has DEADLY food allergies...allergies that cause her to swell and stop BREATHING, you're going to tell me that her enlarged tonsils don't even remotely concern you?!" What I got in return to this out of character behavior (for me), was a hesitant smirk then...,"Alright. I will write the referral, but when they say nothing is wrong...be sure to come and see me." Uh, seriously?! Did he JUST say that to me? He is giving in and writing it?! Who cares about his sarcasm, he gave us the referral after round ONE! NICE! I called and put Liv on the 3 month waiting list and made the appointment with an ENT at The Children's Hospital here in Denver.

Fall 2008...It's GO TIME, or....ENT time! We sat in the waiting room for what seemed like an eternity. Really, we waited for an overbearingly long time. Once we were seen though, it all happened so quickly. We did the usual weight, height and temp check, went through her list of medicines. The nurse responded to her medicine list like they all do, "Really? That many medicines for one tiny little girl?" Yep, that many...it's true. Anyway, eventually we're greeted by a warm and super friendly Dr. I could have hugged her she was so people friendly. She asked a set of questions: Does Olivia snore? Yes. Does Olivia wake in the middle of the night and if so....is it often? Yes...and it is every night. Does she need long naps still? Yes. Does she perspire in her sleep? She wakes up soaking wet in sweat. Q&A ends and the Dr takes a quick look inside Liv's little mouth. She quickly pulls away and says, "We rank tonsils on a scale of 1-4, 1 being barely there and 4 being touching. Olivia is a 3 almost a 4. In my opinion, they need to go, even if she didn't have food allergies I would say this." Now, let me preface this next sentence by saying, I do not love seeking out illnesses for my child. Okay, VALIDATION, don't underestimate what a mother knows about her child. Nobody knows your child and their health/symptoms like their momma.

I think this is a good point to sum this post up. Liv's father and myself quickly discussed whether or not to do the surgery. I say quickly because well...it was a no brainer. Surgery set for Dec of 2008 and that is where I shall resume in this catch up process.

PS, for those wondering, I DID in fact go and visit the referral giving Dr as agreed upon ;).