I've forgotten what number this is

Surgery for Addison, that is. I think that we decided that it was surgery number 7, the first of 2 in round 4, and the 9th time that she has been sedated in her short 3 1/2 years.

Wednesday was this surgery. It was for tissue expander insertion. The doctor placed two expanders back in her chest, and one in the back of her leg. Here's how it went:

We were scheduled for early afternoon surgery, and needed to be at the hospital about noon. So, we had a normal morning: going to the gym, etc, minus the breakfast, which she was not allowed to have. I didn't keep from Addi that she was going to see Dr. Siddiqi that afternoon, I even let her pick out her own new pajamas and after surgery toy. Addi told me that she was not excited to see Dr. Siddiqi, he was going to hurt her. I think she may be getting the hang of this surgery thing.

When we got to the hospital, we were the only ones in the registration waiting room, and got through fairly quickly, but when we got to pre-op, we found several other kids who had been waiting there since early morning, like 8:00 am early. Poor kids! This was not a great sign for us either. However, Dr. Siddiqi came out at our appointed time and talked to us for a minute. He indicated that they were just cleaning the operating room, and it shouldn't be too long. I am not sure what happened between the time that he talked to us, and 10 minutes later, when the nurse came and told us that it would be 45 minutes before Addi would be taken back. She tried to blame it on the doctor, but I am not sure that is the case. I am instead choosing to believe that they needed the room for one of those other kids who had been waiting so much longer. They needed to go first, and I had no problem waiting.

So, after our wait, the nurse came over with a nasal medication for Addi. Apparently, the anesthesiologist forgot to call and tell them to give her the oral Versed, and it was time, so she instead got the nasal Versed, which works much faster. They took us into one of the registration rooms to give her the mist, knowing that she didn't love that stuff, and she met their expectations: screaming from the time it was given to her, until they took her back to surgery.


The surgery itself was routine, just over 2 hours to place 3 expanders. When Dr. Siddiqi came out of surgery, he suggested that we might want to sedate Addi for her weekly fills. We have all of the fills scheduled in his office, and will do the first one there. If she reacts well, we will continue to go there, if not, we will switch to the rapid treatment unit to be sedated once a week. We had talked to the doctor, and he assured us that we could go home, provided that Addi's pain was controlled with Lortab, she was eating, and went to the bathroom. So, I went back to the recovery room, for like 5 minutes, then they moved us to a room, still assuring that as soon as Addi met the criteria, we could go home. This was about 6:00 pm.

Pain management was not a problem. We always come home with Lortab and an antibiotic. Eating? Check - Addi had yogurt, some banana, Slurpee, and plenty of apple juice. We kept asking Addi if she needed to go to the bathroom, and she kept telling us no. Periodically, she would point to her IV - she hates those things - and want it out. I told her that if she went potty, they would take it out and we could go home. Nothing doing. Finally, we just put her on the toilet. She refused to perform.

After a while, our room started to get the intense smell of diesel exhaust. Smelling so strong that it started to make me a little sick, and cause a headache. About the time that I was heading out of the room to let them know that the room had a problem, the charge nurse came in to make sure that we really thought we were going home that night. My response, "Yep, it smells like diesel exhaust in here, and I'm not spending the night. Addison will eventually use the bathroom, and when that happens, I don't care what time it is, we are leaving." She kindly explained that the Life Flight helicopter lands right on top of the room that we were in, and when they have frequent landings and take-offs, it smells like jet fuel. Hmmmm. Good to know. I think that is dangerous to the patients.

Anyway, about 10:00 pm, after about 4 trips to the little girl's room, Addi finally told me that she needed to go pee, and pee she did! That little hat thingy was pretty full. We alerted the nurse immediately, and got her dressed. One set of vital signs later, and we were out of there!

Addi fell asleep on the way home, and slept in my bed that night. She only complained on Thursday a couple of times that her tummy hurt, we stayed right on that Lortab - which she doesn't love either. She got her waffle fed to her for breakfast, and I figured out a pretty sweet set-up for her lunch and dinner:

That's my laptop cushion, but doubled as a bed tray for her, and worked fabulous! By Thursday afternoon, Addi decided that she wanted to get up and walk around. It was at that point that she figured out that she had a "bubble" in her leg as well. She looked at the stitches, asked me what it was, and when I explained that she had a bubble there as well, she tapped the bubble to make it jiggle, saying, "Hey, yeah, there is a bubble there!" Guess that one didn't hurt a bit.

She is pretty bruised since the surgery, but isn't feeling any pain. Addi has taken to asking everyone that stops by if they want to see her bubbles -

the left one

The right one

And tonight, as we were watching The Little Mermaid II for like the 12th time since Wednesday, this is the pose that Addi found most comfortable:

And just a "bubble" side note that I found humorous: A few days ago, I was shopping for bras for one of my older girls. I put some in the basked where Addi was sitting, and she immediately picked them up, and said, "you put it around you like this, then you put your bubbles right here." Yep, she was putting on the bra, to her every girls has bubbles.