Germs, delays and surgery. Merry Christmas.

I started a blog post documenting our delay and the epidemic we experienced over the last two weeks, but decided no one really wanted to know about that.

Just know that everyone in this house but Kenny has ran a fever, had body aches, puked, coughed lungs up and had horrible runny noses. All at the same time. And for 8 days straight. It was a nightmare.

And everyone was finally well just in time for EK's surgery date, only to be delayed the day of when the surgeon came down with pretty much the same ailments.

I realized later in the day on the 16th, just how worked up I had gotten myself over this surgery. When it was cancelled, we were both completely bummed. But it was almost like it was a relief all at the same time. I was mentally, emotionally, whatever you want to call it...exhausted. Wiped out by all the surgery hype, only to come crashing down when they told us it was a no-go for the day.

I knew we were doing the right thing, but I don't care how right it is or how much it's needed, having your kid's head split open is never something that gives you the warm fuzzies.

We'll call it the I'm-gonna-puke-ies. The official term.

By Wednesday, we had her surgery rescheduled for December 23, which was a big answer to prayer. You see, there's this little thing called out-of-pocket-maximums (it's not a small number, trust me) and fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) ours had already been met for the year. So getting this done in 2013 was a huge deal for us.

Huge.

Fast forward to Monday....this time around I didn't get myself near as worked up. Call it experience with the whole process...maybe. Although I attribute it to the tons of friends and family who I knew were interceding on our behalf. A God given peace. I was thankful for that. Plus, our surgery time had been moved up to 10am at the insistence of Dr. Gadre. Made me feel tons better about the whole situation. Especially after he told me on the phone that bad things happen when you start such complicated surgeries that late in the day when everyone is already tired. Ok. Stop talking. Didn't need to know that.




Sister did pretty well without any breakfast upon waking. But she knows what a hospital is and DID NOT taking kindly to being removed from the security of her stroller for vitals, etc. She kept trying to climb back into the stroller and buckle herself up. As if that meant she could leave. This flipping out, latching on to mom/dad, retreating to stroller routine continued each time someone new entered our little cubby until we got a small dose of versed and all was well in her floppy little world.




The surgery took about 4 hours and the hospital did a fantastic job of keeping us updated every hour. Her audiologist, Dr. Katie, even saw us in the waiting room on her way in and out of surgery and stopped to chat and fill us in on the progress. (Her job for the day was to test the implant once it was placed to make sure it was working before they closed her back up. Success.)

Once done, Dr. Gadre filled us in on all the details. All had gone very smoothly. And we have some pretty cool pictures. Well, cool if looking at the skull of a 2-year-old is your thing. He was even able to complete the procedure as normal instead of doing things a little differently as planned due to her tiny ears. Apparently hitting a 2mm hole situated between her facial nerve and nerve of taste isn't an easy job on someone with underdeveloped mastoids. But he did it. And I don't know what that means, so don't ask. He also said he removed a bunch more puss behind her ear which would have never gone away unless physically removed. Another result of 20 months of untreated ear infections. I got the feeling by the way he talked we are referring to a bunch of ear infections to have that much puss. Makes me sad.

He filled us in on all the do's and do not's for the next few weeks, warned us that she looked like a giant q-tip, gave us his home phone number and urged us to use it if needed and told us to let him know when she started college. [Smiles.] I know I literally have to wait hours each time we have an appointment with him, but it's completely worth it to feel this comfortable with the doctor caring for your child.

We finally got to go back and see her and yes, resemble a q-tip she did. They continued to monitor her and around 5ish, when they were satisfied with her vitals and level of awakeness, (I made that word up. You're welcome.) they sent us on our merry way.




The trip home was fairly uneventful. Read as: no puking. Which I'm not used to because I can just talk about being put to sleep and I'm yaking all over the place. Nice to have a kid who doesn't respond the same way to anesthesia. Kenny was happy. Since he's usually the one having to deal with that. But by the time we got home, we had an unhappy little chicken on our hands. Nothing made her happy, no position was right, she was still slightly drunk and agitated by the whole thing and had discovered her new hat. And didn't like it at all.

She slept ok during the night and we kept her loaded with pain meds to keep her comfortable. I slept in the floor beside her crib part of the night. But I'm not telling if that was for her or for me.

We took her turban off last night and I'll be honest, I was shocked at how much hair was gone. But it will grow back, I know. The incision looked good, still just pretty swollen. She was so happy to be able to scratch her head and even sat perfectly still while I gave her a sponge bath and semi-washed her stinky head without getting anything wet.

Honestly, she really has done as well as I would have expected. She's been fussy and ticked off, but who wouldn't be with an extra 10 pounds of gauze wrapped around a swollen head. She's done the whole play/cry/hold me routine over and over, which is totally fine. We are her parents. It's our job to hold and comfort said fussy baby.

Her activation day (AKA Happy Birthday EK's Ears Day) is still on January 3rd. Until then, it's just a hurry up and heal wait.

To top off the awesomeness that happened on Monday....December 24th marked 6 months since a frail, scared, malnourished, 13 pound toddler who could barely move was placed in our arms. It scares me to think about where she was 6 months ago and makes me so excited to see where we are now. We are so blessed to have been chose to be her parents and to have a front row seat to her story of redemption, love and adoption as we pray for her to one day accept Jesus as her personal Savior and even understand just a tiny bit of the sacrifice that was made for her. And I'm definitely not talking about us as her parents...




What a Merry Christmas....new ears for EK. It'll be a year we won't soon forget.




And a journey that we have just begun...

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