T&A Recovery- Day 11 RECOVERED! (mostly)

Whoo Hoo! Friday was a pretty good day for Etta and today was a GREAT day! She's completely off meds (no loritab, no tylenol) and she's eating (pretty well) and she's drinking and she's fighting her naps and she's in an overall great mood! So so so so relieved to have that surgery and the difficult recovery behind us! SO RELIEVED!

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I'm 30 weeks pregnant now!


30 week comparison between Etta and Daniel (crazy how much differently I'm carrying):

T&A Recovery- Day 9

WOW! What a difference a day (and lots and lots of sleep) can make!

Etta only woke a couple times last night and went back to sleep easily. She got a dose of meds around 4:30 and then she woke up around 9:00 and I gave her some tylenol (instead of loritab) and she was still acting sleepy, so I put her in her bed so she could finish waking up... except, she went back to sleep and slept until 11:00 (!!!) So, she basically slept from 9:30 last night to 11:00 this morning. After she got up she drank and drank and drank (yay!). Except, poor thing's ears hurt every time she was done sucking on her straw. I really feel that, at this point, her ears hurt more than her throat! She also ate some cheese and a few bites of banana and pudding and even some goldfish with no problem!

Then, I gave her a bath and another dose of tylenol and because she was feeling so well, I took her up to the elementary school to get her registered for school (which starts next FRIDAY... that totally snuck up on me!). She was a trooper, watching Fresh Beat Band on the iPod while I filled out the paperwork. When we got back home, she acted like she could be sleepy again so I put her in bed around 3:00 and she actually took a nap! A three hour nap! We had to wake her up around 6:00. She woke up a little fussy. I think it was a combo of pain (she slept through a dose) and the fact that we woke her up. So, I gave her some loritab and she got over it after a while. We tried feeding her some mashed potatoes for dinner, but she didn't want it and ended up eating her weight in goldfish for dinner. Which, at this point, I am SO okay with! As long as she's eating SOMETHING!

It's 9:30 and she's still wide awake, but happy. Playing and drinking and dancing along with the Fresh Beat Band. ;) Her sleep cycle is so messed up right now, but I'm okay with it as long as she's feeling better!

T&A Recovery- One Week Post-Op

Well, depending how you count the days, it could be one week plus one day. Etta's surgery was last Wednesday afternoon and we're still having a rough go of it here in Casa de Wenzler. She actually started getting a little better. She was drinking regularly and eating fairly well (she actually ate a whole slice of pizza on Monday night). Then, as I had read/been told by other parents, she started to backslide. This is a result of the fact that the scabs are beginning to fall off and her throat is a little raw/exposed again. Also, her ears have started to hurt. This is also a completely normal side effect of the surgery. Something about the nerves, but I know it hurts her. She was up about every thirty minutes last night crying. Poor thing. And, well.... poor me a little. She finally got some sleep after the 5:00am dose of meds then she (and I) slept until 10:30 this morning. She was generally feeling yucky and whimpered a lot. She drank o.k. today. Not as much as yesterday or the day before, but enough that she was still wetting diapers and crying real tears.

She also TRIED to eat today, but found herself crying after she swallowed the first bite of something. Ugh! I know she's hungry, and that loritab on an empty stomach is making her feel queasy, which makes her not want to eat. I'm really ready to move her to just tylenol and I'm hoping I can feel comfortable giving it a try again tomorrow. Also hoping we get some sleep tonight....

Oh, and see that dot in the middle of her hand?...

it's the scab from where her IV was and today Etta seemed to notice it for the first time. She came over to me holding her hand out and pointing to the little scab, showing it to me. I thought this was neat because she doesn't usually do things like this (pointing to something to show it to me). So, I thought I'd share the little story with our blog readers. :)

Hurry up and feel better, Mini!

T&A Recovery- Days 4-6

Saturday Keith came up to spend the day with us. I was told that morning by a resident that we would tentatively go home that day with the hope that she would just do better (choose to drink) in her own environment. So, we just hoped that she would drink and waited for the ok to go home... and we waited... and we waited...

While we waited we went for walks around the floor and took naps and danced with our shadows and played with Daddy's shoes. And we drank, but not as much as they would like to see. And we ATE! She had some applesauce, which was a HUGE deal!

Finally, it was getting close to shift change and no one had said anything more about discharge. So, we asked. Around 6:15pm, the answer was no... unless she decided to drink... and drink she did! In about an hour and a half, she drank about 8oz of juice, ate a slice of cheese, and ate a cup of yogurt! My girl rocked it and they said she could go home!

We were finally discharged at 8:55pm and we were home by about 9:40pm. Poor E was exhausted and ready for bed, but I stuck her in the tub to wash all of that hospital off of her. THEN she went to bed! Then, I showered and I went to bed!

She woke up crying around 3am and I went in to give her a dose of loritab. Which, seriously, she HATES. It is a lot of stressful work to get her to take her meds, but it's important work. So, I keep dragging myself out of bed in the middle of the night to torture her with her meds.

She slept in some on Sunday, but when she got up, the first thing she did was chug her juice! Then, she ate some cheese and drank some pediasure. She had more to drink in those first few hours than she'd had for two days. We KNEW she'd do better at home! I ran out for a couple hours to pick up the items that didn't sell at the Encores and More Children's Consignment. Thankfully, I didn't have much to pick up... and the things I DID pick up were obviously overpriced... I'll reprice them for the next sale. We took it easy for the rest of the day. Etta continued to drink and eat some. She really WANTS to eat, but isn't always happy with her soft food choices. She'd much rather have goldfish, which I may let her have tomorrow or the next day... as long as she chews them up well before swallowing!

Today has basically been a repeat of yesterday. I went to bed late last night because she was due for a dose of meds at 12:30 and I didn't want to go to sleep for an hour to have to get up and give it to her... Then, she woke up crying in the middle of the night because she had lost her binkie. I couldn't find it either and had to go to the kitchen to get one out of the dishwasher. Then, around 6am she woke up crying to let me know that it was time for another dose of medicine. She got up for the day around 8 and we've been taking it easy. She's been drinking fine and eating a little and playing mostly normally and enjoying mellowing out in front of the tv.

She got a nice long nap and just got up a little while ago... and I dosed her with loritab while she screamed. She's all good now with Nick Jr and The Fresh Beat Band! ;)

T&A Recovery- Day 3

We're still here at Vanderbilt. For the MOST part, Etta doesn't SEEM to be in much pain, except that she won't eat and (more importantly) she's not drinking much. I'm still making the nurses dose her with Loritab every four hours to make sure she isn't in pain. Which, by the way, holding her down and making her swallow that stuff is a CHORE, but it's worth it, obviously. Last night was a mixture of rough and better than the night before. Keith was here with us because he missed us (and we missed him), but after trying to share this tiny bed with him and listening to him snore all night, and, well, let's just say,  he wasn't invited back again tonight. The monitors beeped less last night and I got more solid chunks of sleep. The 2am dose of Loritab was especially hard on our little E. About 20 minutes after the long battle to get it down her throat, she threw it up. This makes sense because she's been taking all of this stuff on an empty stomach and it can cause nausea. Plus, she gets SO worked up when we're giving it to her that I'm actually surprised she doesn't throw it up at that point. Anyway, I had the nurse give her some Zofran to help with the nausea before we gave her the 6am dose and we haven't had any puke since then.

Keith left just after her team rounded at about 6:30 this morning and it was Snoozapalooza for Etta. She just slept and slept and slept all morning! I finally just got her up around 9:30 or so, offered her breakfast, and gave her a sort of sponge bath. After the bath, I put her into a clean pair of her baby scrubs and we went for a walk/ride around the floor. All of the nurses just adore her and tell me how cute she is every time we walk by, and I tend to agree with them. ;)

"Look ma, no tonsils!"

She was pretty wiped out when we got back from our walk and she drank (!!!) about three ounces of juice before I put her in her crib for a nap. While she was napping, I went downstairs to pick up the prescriptions Keith dropped off on Wednesday night that we'll need if we ever get to go home. I also grabbed some lunch from the food court and brought it back to the room. After Etta got up we took it easy and we also went down to the 6th floor for a bit to play in the Child Life Play Room. She drank some more, but not as much as earlier in the morning.

When we got back to the room, it was time for her to have a steroid to help with swelling and I sat her down to try to feed her a little something (again) and this time she ate! She had a WHOLE cup of vanilla pudding! WOOT! While I was feeding this to her, Dr. Wooten rounded on her. He was pleased that today was a better day, but he still wasn't comfortable sending her home. He'd like for her to get at least 24 ounces of liquid a day and she'd only had about 6 or 7. So, another night we shall stay.

The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful. Another walk around the floor and another round of screaming and forcing her to take meds. She's sleeping now. Hopeful that it will be an uneventful night...

Etta's T&A

After much anticipation and anxiety, Etta finally had her surgery to remove her tonsils and adnoids yesterday. Her surgery wasn't scheduled until 4:15pm!! I felt SO bad not feeding her all day that I got us both up at 5:30 yesterday morning to feed her a pb&j and a pediasure before the 6:00am food cut-off time. She was allowed to have milk until 8:00 and clear liquids until noon. So, to keep her mind off of her hunger, I took her out of the house for about an hour (to a local consignment sale) and by the time we got back home she was tired enough to go down for an early nap (at about 10:30). She slept until I woke her up at about 1:20 to put her in the car to drive to the hospital. We had to be there by 2:15. So, she never REALLY had a chance to think about how hungry she was, which worked out. 

Etta copying Keith. It was cute.

After we got to Vanderbilt and got registered and stuff, they took us back to a pre-op area. (wow. just typing about this is giving me anxiety again...) They put us in a little holding room and had us change her into her hospital pajama get-up and lots of people came in to ask us lots of questions about her health history. While we were waiting for her to go back for surgery, we came across a cozy coupe (car) in the hall and she had the best time playing with that. She drove it up and down the hall and beeped the horn and got in and out of the door. (note to self: buy a cozy coupe).

Then, they took her. That was really a bit much for this emotional mama and I am SO grateful it was over so quickly. They put us in a sub-waiting room and 15 minutes later the ENT came in to say he was all done and she did great and that her tonsils were fairly enlarged and her adnoids were moderately enlarged. Another 15 minutes or so and they called us back to post-op/recovery area. We could hear her crying before we could see her. That was also a bit much for me. It's hard to see your kid disoriented and in pain and obviously wanting her momma. They just kept pushing pain medication until she chilled out and we were eventually wheeled into her room. They switched her over to loritab every four hours and it has worked like magic! She had a couple of rough moments last night with break-through pain as the loritab was wearing off between doses and neither of us got much sleep with all of the beeping monitirs and the 1:00am fire drill and the helipad on the roof RIGHT above us, but we catnapped together all night. Keith went home last night around 10:30 to take care of Ferris and to get some sleep so he could go to work today.

Finally, it was a new day and I could tell Etta's pain was being manged. She napped a lot today and her most vigorious crying fits happen when they have to force feed her the loritab. Apparently it DOES NOT taste good (plus she hasn't wanted to take much by mouth yet). I hope the pharmacy will be able to flavor our prescription when we go home.

In an attempt to get her to drink, they took her off of the IV fluids this morning and told us we could walk around and maybe she would work up a thirst. Well, of course, she LOVED this! We walked up and down the halls and she thought it would be great fun to race, but I was so afraid that she would fall that I kept stopping her, which kind of made it a game and she wanted to run even more! We came across a little green car and that kept her from running, but I had to bend over to push it which was no bueno.

Later in the afternoon, we went back out, but this time I hunted down another (pink!) cozy coupe so I could push it without bending WAY over. So, anyway, all of this activity worked (some)! As soon as we would get back to the room, Etta would take a few gulps of juice from her cup, but then she didn't want to drink any more after that. So, small steps, I guess....

Momma's belly = pillow. ;)

She went to sleep around 6:30, right after Dr. Wooten (Etta's ENT) rounded on her this evening. He was cautiously optimistic that we'd head home tomorrow... as long as she continues to drink. I also asked him to change the parameters of her pulse-ox machine. It beeped anytime her oxygen saturation dipped below 94 last night and he agreed to lower it to 87. (It's been hooked up for over two hours now, and I've only heard it beep once!) Keith got here around 7:30 and brought some dinner for us and then I got to take a shower (aaaah!). He's planning to stay here with us tonight. I hope it's a more restful night than last night!