Done

She's done and in her room. She was in surgery for about four hours, but her doctor is very pleased with the result. He said it was a very difficult surgery. Because of the AMC, the joint was filled with fibrous tissue and the anatomy is different, so it was slow going to make sure they had everything where it needed to be. But he said they got it cleaned out and everything looked secure. We got up to the recovery room about 1:00, and she was just really waking, and immediately cried a hoarse little cry, which continued until we'd gotten into her room. She wanted to be picked up, but when she was moved it hurt, so I bent over the crib and cradled her against my body and that soothed for for a bit. However, some of the pain medicine started to wear off and she got this frantic, screaming cry which cut me like a dull blade in the gut. But because we warned them about her last surgery and the difficulty controlling her pain, they were ready this time with more pain medication and it took effect very quickly. She also did not have the problems breathing that she had last time, thank God.

Right after we got settled, of course, she had to get moved again for her CT scan. The doctor ordered one to make absolutely sure that the femoral head was where it should be, and it was. She fell asleep during the scan when the meds fully kicked in, and slept for the next hour or so, even when they moved her back from the CT machine to her crib. She woke when they were taking her temperature (I don't know if this means anything, but she HATES having her temp taken under the arm. She does not mind one bit having it taken rectally. My child is strange). She had worked herself up into a bit of a fever, so they gave her some antibiotics. She is back down to normal now, and according to Big Daddy she is resting comfortably if no one pesters her. He is with her now while I got to come home for a bit and rest, as I will be spending the night there. I ache all over, after having been tense for so long.

Her cast goes down to her toes on the right side, but only down to her knee on the left. She'll be in it for six weeks. She has a plate and four screws in her hip, and the doctor isn't venturing a guess as to when they'll come out yet. It will be fun to explain the hardware to the security guards at the airport in NYC when we go for a wedding this fall...

I just realized I left out a bunch of stuff the last time she had surgery. In a nutshell: Someone poked themselves with a used needle during her surgery, and didn't report it until after she was in recovery, meaning that in order to get the blood needed to test for HIV, Hepatitis, etc., they had to stick her while she was awake instead of doing it while she was still in the OR, as is usual. I gladly gave permission to do this, because having worked with needles myself I know how agonizing it would be to not know if you got something, even though you've been reassured by the parent that the kid is healthy. However, it took several attempts by three different phlebotomists to get the sample, and if the last one hadn't worked I was pulling the plug. The poor kid didn't deserve to go through that just because someone couldn't make up their mind whether or not to report a finger-stick. Then Peanut had trouble breathing, they thought due to the morphine. Morphine, and other narcotics, depress the respiratory drive, and she was not taking full, normal breaths, plus she had a lot of junk in her lungs. She managed to keep her oxygen saturation up so they didn't need to intubate her again, but it was a roller-coaster of good numbers and bad for several hours. Finally, they decided to stop the morphine and give her some codeine to see if that would help. It did, but the codeine didn't stop the pain. However, they apparently could not give her more morphine because of the codeine dose, so I sat and listened to her whimper for four hours until they could give her the morphine again. At that point, her lungs were clear and she was breathing normally. I wanted to tear someone's head off, but I was too exhausted. The moniters in the room can't be heard from the nurse's station (this is one reason they are building a new children's hospital), so I had to listen to the alarm go off every five minutes until things settled down. Anyway, this time was much better. None of the breathing problems, very little of the pain problem. Whew.