Each anesthesiologist has their own way of handling procedures. Most do not want parents to go back with their kids after they reach a certain age. In talking with the anesthesiologist today he knew that Sadie was a bit anxious about the procedure, but she wanted to try and go without any pre-meds because those make her so groggy, so he offered to allow me to go back with her until she feel asleep. Sadie got a great kick out of the outfit I was wearing to walk her back.
Here is Sadie and I just before we walked down to the surgery room; it was wonderful to get to go back with her, but also hard. Her least favorite part is when she starts falling asleep. Such a feeling of loss of control. I am so proud of how brave she was!
Once the anesthesia was administered the surgery itself only took about 30 minutes. We meet with Dr. M and he said everything went in just as it should. No brace for 1 week and weight only as she can, but give it a few days before she tries. She will follow up with the doc in 10 days and then it will be several months before we see him again to check the progress of the inserted screw.
An hour after speaking with Dr. M we were called back to recovery as Sadie was then awake. At this point the normal procedure is: get the child under controlled pain and confirm they can hold down liquids. Typically at that point they will send you home. When Sadie was brought to us she was obviously in pain. She stated she had been awake for awhile, but that they had been working to get her pain under control a bit before they called us back.
Sadie's pain stayed at a 7-8 for HOURS... they were giving her full doses of pain medication for her "age" and then bumping those doses up thinking that maybe her body has a higher tolerance due to the medications she takes. This went on for a long time, with pain medication being given consistently every 20-30 mins with NO relief in pain. When I say NO relief, I mean, nothing was doing it. She was having a burning sensation and then large pulses of pain and with every bit of pain meds they gave her she was increasingly more tired, but unable to rest at all due to the pain. It was awful! At about hour 4 they decided to give her something to help her sleep for about 30 minutes while they gave her even more pain medication in hopes that by the time she woke up she would get some relief. As this medication to help her sleep was being put in her IV she immediately fell asleep (it was actually some what scary to watch) and within moments the nurse was hooking her up to monitors as she must have realized what we didn't, she wasn't breathing very well. Her oxygen levels had dropped and the nurse was trying to arose her saying "Sadie, take some deep breaths for me" over and over. In addition she pulled out oxygen to help Sadie's levels go back up. In the midst of all this her blood pressure also went up quite a bit! It was a heart wrenching 20 minutes. When she woke up (which was as fast as her falling asleep) it was in immediate and aggressive pain. It was as if she had been knocked out and then brought back right to the place she was 20 mins prior. At this point they administered morphine. 20 mins later, more morphine, 30 mins later more morphine. At this point we knew she was staying and the pain was sill there... as if they had not given her anything.
Soon they moved her upstairs and admitted her and the doctor (not Dr. M) came to see her. He took off the ace bandage that was over her ankle to make sure there was nothing obvious going on there and then re-wrapped the ankle, but much looser then it was applied. Literally within 5 minutes of him re-wrapping the ankle looser the pain was going away. She went from cringing in pain, tears streaming down her face and stating a pain level of 8 to no longer grimacing and reporting the pain was much less and closer to a 4!
Seriously it all came down to the bandage being wrapped to tight! She had been complaining that her toes were feeling numb, but no one thought more of that than the fact she just had surgery on that foot. Now it is clear the wrap was so tight it was cutting circulation and with there being present swelling from active arthritis the tight bandage just amplified pain in a huge way.
Although we were somewhat frustrated that we didn't' realize that 4 hours earlier, we were RELIEVED that is all it was! After that Sadie started feeling very ill due to all the medication that they had given her. They then had to give her anti-nausea medications to help her feel a bit better.
By 6:30 (6.45 hours after surgery) she was asleep for the first time in a solid sleep. The poor girl was SO tired!!
The first sign of peace! Seriously she was a warrior today!!
I wanted to share the color photo too in order to show her tired eyes. Sadie rarely if ever gets bags under her eyes, but her eyes are so puffy, so red and have the hugest bags I have ever seen this girl have. Still at 10:30 those bags are there. This day took a toll on her, but I will say her spirits improved knowing that it was the fault of an ace bandage and that the surgery didn't cause her to feel that horrible in itself!
Thank you to all who continue to pray over her. We had hoped that 2010 would bring us one year of no hospital stays, but we all were able to laugh as we said that maybe we were just getting this years stay out of the way early.
As the nights goes on I feel confident in stating that we should be discharged early tomorrow morning. She is doing much better with pain and she is no longer feeling so ill. She is sleeping and although a room-mate was just brought in with us, it doesn't seem to be bothering Sadie at all!
Thank you again for the prayers... they got all of us, in our own way, through today. God is faithful through all!
We are so happy to hear that Sadie is doing so much better and will be going home this morning! Cannot believe her eyes and HATE to hear all that she had to go through yesterday!!
ReplyDeleteGive her a huge hug for us and send her our love.