Ari is home and resting. We left after a couple of prescription issues (they kepy giving us pills instead of liquid) we made it out. After some traffic we made it home.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Going Home
The drain is out, the IVs are coming off and as soon as we get Ari's prescriptions fixed (we changed prescription providers mid year and that confused the pharmacy) then we can go home. The incision was relatively small compared to what they expected and she's recovering well so they said she was good enough to continue recovering at home. It helps that we live 15 minutes from the hospital. I'll work from home tomorrow with Mom mom Wood watching the girls. We'll let Ari recover for the weekend and at least through Tuesday and then we'll decide what to do from there. It would be great if she was back in school by Wednesday.
Out of Bed
Ari is working her way through her goals. The first was to get her pain under control. So far so good on that. Number two was to go pee. It was a struggle as usual but she finally did that about 10 hours after the deadline the doctors set for her. So we can check that one off. Third, she needs to eat and drink. She had half a pancake this morning and is taking g a little bit of apple juice. She needs to drink more but its a start. Fourth she needs to get up. She screamed a bit but was able to walk to a chair and sit down. She made it without much pain, but she was very scared. She's watching shows on Netflix right now and it looks like she actually just fell asleep I the chair. The main things left are taking the drain off of her back and taking meds orally. She started that but got sick from it. She probably needs more food first. For the drain, there's barely any blood left. We're just waiting for the doctors to take it off. If everything falls perfectly into place we could be out of here tonight. Most likely it will be tomorrow though.
Lily is here today. They were glad to see each other but Lily is a little loud for Ari right now. Luckily she settled down and right now she is taking a nap.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Resting Well
Ari is resting and watching a Hello Kitty DVD from the playroom. She's starting to staw awake longer and is starting to complain about all the wires and tubes hooked up to her, which is a good sign. Now we just need her to start drinking more and go pee. After that if we can get some food into her tomorrow and get her to sit up, we will hopefully be heading home sometime Friday.
In the meantime, if anyone wants to visit feel free at any time tomorrow. Part in the Orleans parking garage and head to the children's center. Take the elevators up to the 10th floor, south entrance, room 18. Hopefully Lily will be allowed up tomorrow. As of right now she is allowed, but that will chamge as soon as the CDC determines there are enough cases of the flu to up their warning levels.
In a Room
We're on Floor 10S, room 18 in the Children's Center. Ari is resting and watching Magic School Bus. She hasn't been awake too much and hasn't had anything to eat or drink, but all the meds upset her stomach.
Our room has a nice view of the harbor and we have the room to ourselves. I'll be hanging here for the nights and Amanda will be going home to see Lily in the evenings. Same routine as always. Lily was two months old when Ari had her first surgery.
Post-op
Ari is in a bed in postop right now. She's sleeping at the moment but was up long enough to say hi. She has the doll she made in pre-op with her. She took it back to surgery amd the nurses held it for her until she was done.
It looks like we'll be goint straight to a room but we're not sure where yet.
Surgery is done.
Dr Ain was just in and told us everything is done and went well. She is still in the OR but the surgery is done. We'll find out soon if she is going to the PICU or to a room. I'll let everyone know what room she is in if we go there. We'll hopefully be able to back and see her soon.
She's in the OR
Ari is back in the OR and asleep now. We'll get a phone call when the surgery has started. It should be started soon and over somewhere around 2 or 2:30.
One more doctor
We just need to have a visit from
anesthesia and then we can go back. They said it would be about 3.5 hours from when they get started.
More prep
We've met with the pain specialists and have gone over the normal procedures such as the meds button. Also there are two new monitors they want us to try. Child life services is here now playing with Ari, letting her play doctor with a big muppet like doll. Ari helped put her to sleep and give her a shot. She's still very nervous about the IV so we've moved past that just to keep her calm. She's doing pretty good and luckily the IVs don't go in until after she is asleep. We'll just have to be ready to calm her down afterwards.
In Pre-op
Ari has had her vitals taken, gotten dressed and picked out a scent for her mask (raspberry). Now we are in the play area. This time they have dolls for the kids to make and take with them which is really nice. She just finished making her doll so now she's playing with toys and watching Rio, which is one of her favorite movies.
In the family waiting area.
We've made it to the hospital and we're waiting for the registration people to come over and get all the paperwork done. Ari is very jumpy but not bad overall. She's playing games and they have Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the TVs in here so she's watching that as well.
Monday, October 14, 2013
36 Hours to Go
We're coming up on the day before surgery. We have all the paperwork ready and the pieces are all in place. We are doing what we can to keep Ari calm and prepare her for this round. I read "Curious George Goes to the Hospital" twice tonight before she went to bed. Hopefully all goes well at school tomorrow and we should be getting some homework to do while she is out.
We are just about ready to head out. I need to pack a few days worth of clothes as I will be staying with her. She'll be in until Saturday most likely. The surgery starts at 10:30 on Wednesday and I'll keep everyone posted here once we get to the hospital around 8:30.
Monday, October 7, 2013
Surgery number 5 prep
It was time to see her doctor anyway, but we had noticed Ari had been complaining about her back more recently. We also thought that the bump on her back was sticking out more and she was playing with it a lot. So, we made her an appointment to see Dr Ain. We got the x-rays done (and that was an ordeal by itself. There are only a few places anywhere near up that do this kind of x-ray AND accept our insurance. Well, the closest one (20 minutes from home) closed. Luckily I found one about that distance away that does these x-rays from 1-4 on most weekdays... Of course I had to take her out of school early to do this, but it needed to get done. If the insurance company was reasonable like our last one was, they would just let us get the x-ray right at the doctor's office on the day of the appointment, while we are waiting for our appointment).
Well, the doctor decided he didn't like how her hooks looked on the x-ray and wanted up to get a CT scan and he would get the surgery scheduled. She needed the surgery anyone, but he wanted to know what he would be up against. After fighting with our health insurance and countless administrators at multiple doctors office, we eventually got the CT scan scheduled... Two weeks later... Thank God it wasn't an emergency.
The CT scan showed the hooks had come loose. The Doctor's explanation was that the part of the spine the hooks were connected to should have grown more than they did. For some reason in Ari that part of her spine is growing at a much too slow pace. Since the bone didn't grow, the hooks no longer had a strong enough place to hold on two and eventually worked their way loose. Therefor another repair needs to be done. This means a much more invasive surgery. They are replacing the hooks with two screws placed into the side of her spine.
The bump on Ari's back seems to get worse by the day and has gotten hard to look at. She really needs to get to surgery soon. It's going to take place on Oct 16 at 10:30. That meant we have to make sure she doesn't eat in the morning. Her surgery is usually at 8:30 but not this time. We have to be there at 8:30 this round. I'll keep everyone posted as to what's happening on the day of surgery here as usual. Until then everyone pray for Ari and the Doctors.
Well, the doctor decided he didn't like how her hooks looked on the x-ray and wanted up to get a CT scan and he would get the surgery scheduled. She needed the surgery anyone, but he wanted to know what he would be up against. After fighting with our health insurance and countless administrators at multiple doctors office, we eventually got the CT scan scheduled... Two weeks later... Thank God it wasn't an emergency.
The CT scan showed the hooks had come loose. The Doctor's explanation was that the part of the spine the hooks were connected to should have grown more than they did. For some reason in Ari that part of her spine is growing at a much too slow pace. Since the bone didn't grow, the hooks no longer had a strong enough place to hold on two and eventually worked their way loose. Therefor another repair needs to be done. This means a much more invasive surgery. They are replacing the hooks with two screws placed into the side of her spine.
The bump on Ari's back seems to get worse by the day and has gotten hard to look at. She really needs to get to surgery soon. It's going to take place on Oct 16 at 10:30. That meant we have to make sure she doesn't eat in the morning. Her surgery is usually at 8:30 but not this time. We have to be there at 8:30 this round. I'll keep everyone posted as to what's happening on the day of surgery here as usual. Until then everyone pray for Ari and the Doctors.
End of Summer Report
It's a little late, but here's the report on the rest of out summer. We did end up going back to Busch Gardens. We went back twice actually. The first time we went back for the summer shows and fireworks. This was Busch Gardens Illuminights, which was wonderful. The girls loved all the shows during the day. There was one in Italy which was more of an acrobatics show. That one ended with confetti cannons shooting paper butterflies everywhere. Ari had quite the collection by the time we left the area. The second show was in Ireland and was a mixture of musicians and acrobatics. It started off with live musicians playing upbeat Celtic style music. That half of the show was great. Then it almost felt like they ran out of songs that they knew and they turned on a mix CD of top 40 songs. The musicians danced at this point, or clapped along. Nothing too interesting. The acrobats went from really interesting and fun routines to more dance based routines. Overall the second half fell flat, but the girls loved the first half. Lily danced to one or two songs in the second half and Ari just lost interest. The show was still worth seeing, but if we went back I would have left when the second half started.
The fireworks were outstanding and worth staying for, but the girls passed out not long after they were done. The park was lit up all over the place and it was beautiful. There were fun statues all over the part and the girls lived all of them. Overall, another great trip to Busch Gardens. We got in all of their favorite rides and got to say hi to Elmo and Grover from a distance.
Our last trip to Busch Gardens was over Labor Day Weekend. My parents went with us this time. We stayed in Richmond on Friday night and got a good start on Saturday. There was some shore traffic but it wasn't too bad. We made it to the park with plenty of time to take everything in. Some of the rides and shows were shut down in preparation for their upcoming Halloween events. The only real disappointment was the Celtic Fyre show (Irish Dancing) was closed for the season. Flights over Europe was closed as well, which my parents probably would have loved. Some of the Halloween props were in place and the kids got a kick out of all of the pumpkins everywhere.
We spent two days in the park, taking our time and trying to get everything in. No coasters on this trip, but we did see all of the shows that were open and rode just about everything else. The kids of course made their way through their list of favorites and on Saturday they were able to get into the two water play areas. On Sunday night we had the kids say goodbye to the park for the year, which was a bit sad for them. We promised we would try to get back again next year which cheered them up a bit. At this point they were really tired anyway (and so was everyone else) so we all headed back to the hotel.
Labor Day was spent mostly driving. After breakfast my parent drove home and we drove to Frederick. It was the last Keys game of the year and we still had $20 worth of play tickets left for the fun zone. Plus, we did want to get one more game in before it ended for the year. The kids had a blast with all those tickets and we really didn't watch much of the game, but Ari got to see Keyote one more time and that made her happy.
That was pretty much it for the summer. After that it was back to school (Really that was the week before. Ari had already finished her first week of Kindergarten. That's a whole other topic there.) and time to head back and see her back doctor.
The fireworks were outstanding and worth staying for, but the girls passed out not long after they were done. The park was lit up all over the place and it was beautiful. There were fun statues all over the part and the girls lived all of them. Overall, another great trip to Busch Gardens. We got in all of their favorite rides and got to say hi to Elmo and Grover from a distance.
Our last trip to Busch Gardens was over Labor Day Weekend. My parents went with us this time. We stayed in Richmond on Friday night and got a good start on Saturday. There was some shore traffic but it wasn't too bad. We made it to the park with plenty of time to take everything in. Some of the rides and shows were shut down in preparation for their upcoming Halloween events. The only real disappointment was the Celtic Fyre show (Irish Dancing) was closed for the season. Flights over Europe was closed as well, which my parents probably would have loved. Some of the Halloween props were in place and the kids got a kick out of all of the pumpkins everywhere.
We spent two days in the park, taking our time and trying to get everything in. No coasters on this trip, but we did see all of the shows that were open and rode just about everything else. The kids of course made their way through their list of favorites and on Saturday they were able to get into the two water play areas. On Sunday night we had the kids say goodbye to the park for the year, which was a bit sad for them. We promised we would try to get back again next year which cheered them up a bit. At this point they were really tired anyway (and so was everyone else) so we all headed back to the hotel.
Labor Day was spent mostly driving. After breakfast my parent drove home and we drove to Frederick. It was the last Keys game of the year and we still had $20 worth of play tickets left for the fun zone. Plus, we did want to get one more game in before it ended for the year. The kids had a blast with all those tickets and we really didn't watch much of the game, but Ari got to see Keyote one more time and that made her happy.
That was pretty much it for the summer. After that it was back to school (Really that was the week before. Ari had already finished her first week of Kindergarten. That's a whole other topic there.) and time to head back and see her back doctor.