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Sunday, April 29, 2007

Kalee's Surgery and Hospital Stay

For those of you who don't know, Kalee had to have surgery Monday night to have her appendix removed. We stayed in the hospital until Saturday morning. It was quite a week.Wow, this week has been something else! Let me tell you one of the worst things about being a parent is sending your child off to a total stranger to have them be cut open so they could get better. While you know YOU HAVE to do it, it's really hard. She fell asleep while we were waiting on her to be taken in, but before that she wasn't worried about it at all. I was surprised. I told her what was going to happen to prepare her and I told her that she would be asleep while they did it and would not feel a thing. She just said OK and that was it. My mom and I prayed with her before they came to take us down. It was so nerve racking, I just wanted it to be over with so I didn't have to worry anymore. I got to get up on the hospital bed with her to go down to surgery and waited with her. All the nurses were so nice, they came over to talk to her and tell her how pretty she was and stuff like that. She was eating it all up. They kept telling me not to worry, I guess they could see it on my face. But how could I NOT worry?! Anyway, when the time came she was asleep on me and I slipped away, the nurse gave her the sedative and I kissed her on her forehead and told her to please take care of my baby! I didn't want to leave. It was so hard. But I did and I went and met my mom in surgery waiting area and paced the whole hour and 10 minutes! They have a screen in the room and it tells you when the surgery starts and when they are closing her up and then when they are done. I think I checked it every minute. I paced the room the halls I tried to sit and couldn't! Thank GOD Avree stayed asleep because I don't think I would have been able to sit and nurse her. When the band aid appeared on the screen to tell me she was finished I paced the halls waiting for someone to come tell me what was going on. The anesthesiologist (sp?) came out first to give me Kalee's teeth. They were loose and she said they had to be pulled. Kalee was very happy about this. She told me she was fine and the doc would be here soon. SO I waited and paced some more. Finally the doc came out and said that it took a little longer because her appendix was up behind her colon and they had to do some digging and therefore her incision was a little bit longer than normal. But she was OK. So now I wanted to see her, I really didn't care what the doc said as long as it was the fact that she was OK. I got to go back and see her and oh it was so hard seeing her in that bed so pale and so out of it.Trust me there is a big difference in seeing them sleep and seeing them just come out of surgery. She opened her eyes and smiled and then closed them back again. We got her to her room and she slept the rest of the night. I didn't sleep hardly at all. I was so nervous for her. I am getting so emotional just writing about it! The next day she slept most of the day. But that evening she started actually crying and asking me why I would not let her eat. All she wanted to do was eat or drink something and I couldn't let her. I felt like the worst mother on this planet. She cried for about an hour that night about how she was starving. I know she didn't understand but boy was it hard NOT to give her anything. I wanted to cry so bad. I just put my head down and prayed with her for her. All she had to do was pass gas and she could eat. That was all and she couldn't and that made her mad. I seriously thought about lying to the nurses so she could have something to drink but I knew that it would make things worse if I did. Finally the next day she got up said she was hungry went to the bathroom laid in her bed and said mom, I just farted call the nurse! It was so funny and I was so relieved for her. By the time the nurse got in there she had tooted several times. I took her to the playroom and she actually pooped in her pants. She said oops, I am sorry. But at that point she still had no control over her bowels. She did it again several hours later and the doc came in and gave the OK for her to eat!!!! I wished I would have gotten out my camera and taken a picture of her face. She was so happy and that made me so happy!This has been an ordeal I never want to face again.