We had to check in at the same day surgery clinic at 6:30 a.m. On Tuesday for Claire's G-tube placement. When we arrived, the place was packed. Monday had been a holiday so there were that many more scheduled cases... Yay. After getting checked in Claire was given atropine since her anesthesiologist routinely gives this drug to 'little babies' like Claire. Her anesthesiologist then askes us how bad Claire's reflux was and whether we thought she would be fine to get the IV after under general anesthesia... Since she could get aspiration pneumonia, a potentially life threatening illness if she had reflux before the IV and her airway secured.... Double yay. And here comes the first rush of second thoughts. Well, shit. What kind of potential life threatening situations are we putting Claire in for this essentially elective procedure???
After deciding that her reflux should be ok to get the IV after being asleep, and after Claire completely filled her diaper, we walked down the hall to the operating room and handed her off to the anesthesiologist. I don't know how many times a day parents hand their baby off to anesthesiologist a in that very hallway, through that very set of double doors... And wonder if they'll ever see their little one again. I know, I know it sounds super dramatic, but there are very real risks with any surgery and anytime someone goes under general anesthesia. Especially when it's your baby and especially when you've seen these 'minute risks' come to fruition in your own OR.
The tears began to flow as jake and I walked to the waiting room but after getting a muffin and a chai only a matter of minutes passed before her doctor came in to tell us the procedure was over and Claire was doing fine. About fifteen to twenty minutes later I was able to be with her in post-op. Overall she seemed to be doing good, you could tell she was in some pain but she was her regular feisty self. From there she was moved up to the infant med/surg unit and she stayed pretty sleepy most of the afternoon with pain medicine. They would keep her NPO (nothing by mouth) for 24 hours, then begin using the G tube for feeds. Jake and I went to a G tube class that night in the hospital to learn emergency and routine care of the tube while Deborah stayed with miss Claire in her room.
Up until Tuesday evening pain control didn't seem like much of an issue but then... Then It was. Every few hours the pain meds would wear off and she would get just enough more to keep her comfortable for awhile longer. We were supposed to be 'rounded on' by the surgery team early Wednesday morning so they could check Claire out and give the orders to start her feeds. Ten 'o clock came. Noon came, then 2 pm...we had anticipated going home by now and we hadn't even started her feeds yet...3 pm came...her nurse finally got an order to start her first feed of 25 mL. The plan was to do two of 25, 50, 75, and 100 mL (100 mL being a full feed for her). We did a 3:00 feed of 25 mL and finally saw a surgery resident around 4:30 that afternoon. Unfortunately she didn't check her incisions because it wasn't until almost 7:30 when jake mentioned to the nurse that Claire's bandage seemed budging that it was seen that her incision had opened and had herniated tissue. A surgical nurse practitioner came by around 9 pm, after Jake had already left for the night, and said that she would need to be taken back to the OR in the morning to have it fixed. This also meant she would have to go under general anesthesia again. And her feeds would have to stop. We were going to be here awhile.
Damn it. Cue in the next set of second thoughts. And worst case scenarios. Damn it.
Thursday morning the OR tech came to get Claire, I was able to carry her down to the front desk of the OR where I met the surgeon and anesthesiologist. Jake hadn't made it up yet so the Drs assured me that everything would be fine and they would fix her up in no time. By the
time I made it to the waiting room, in tears once more, Jake had gotten there. So we waited, yet again, for our daughter to come out of surgery and anesthesia.
The rest of ther hospital course was pretty un eventful. It was just a matter of increasing her feeds and ensuring that she could tolerate them. By Friday afternoon she was up to her full feed and doing okay... And we were all SO ready to go home (and mr Owen was SO ready to have us all home).
The past week has been a learning curve for us. We are getting back into our rhythm of what has become our normal and Claire is healing well. Other than not feeling the need to sleep through the night she is basically back to her old self. And not having to deal with (or worry about) the NG tube is nice. I'm hoping that by this time next week things will be even better and that we'll be working on some oral intake for little missy...
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