Surgery Day

We made it. Surgery day. Somehow I felt more calm than I expected as I feel like my first anxiety was removed. It was the day and Annabelle was healthy. Annabelle slept till 8:15 today which was amazing. I was afraid I’d hear a lot of rumblings about her lack of food and water and the longer she slept the better. She woke up happy and ready to go to the hospital. We bathed her and tied her hair in braids, packed up a little back pack, watched a little bit of TV and were off to SickKids.

We arrived at pre-op for 9:50am and everything happens so fast. We were told to be there at 10:00am and surgery would start at 12 noon. Well within 5 min we were to taken into a room where Annabelle was weighed and checked. There were several families in the waiting with all the kids in their hospital outfits. Once the checks were done I was given clothes for Annabelle and wipes where I had to clean her entire body. All of the sudden her eyes filled up with tears and she started bawling. She did not want to wear the hospital outfit. I knew all of her nerves all of her worries were presenting through these clothes. She just hugged me and cried and my heart broke.

Next thing I knew Dr. Kelley was at the door. I was not expecting him at all- it was only 10:10. His first surgery ended early and now we were rushing to get Annabelle in. All the nurses were so kind and Dr. Goldberg was her anesthesiologist. He gave her some chocolate medicine to calm her nerves - we put her in a wheel chair with her doll Ellie and that was that. 10:53 they wheeled her away to surgery. It was so quick.

I went back to the hotel, packed up, ate breakfast moved my car to the sick kids parking lot and headed back to Sick Kids.

Karinna, Dr. Kelley’s secretary came down to meet me which was so wonderful. We had talked and emailed what seemed like a hundred times and it was so nice to meet her and thank her in person for all the advocating and help she has done for our family.

It wasn’t long after she left that Sean arrived. We went to the car unhooked the car seat, got organized again and headed to the surgery waiting room. We got there for 2:30- was told to be there for 3pm in case the surgery ended early and we waited. We were told the surgery would be about 5 hours long. At five and a half hours I was losing it. My head kept going down a dark hole. Is she ok? Is there nerve damage? Did something happen to the anaesthetic? Finally a volunteer told us the surgery was done and 10 min later Dr Kelley was there. This was at 4:40pm

We were brought into a small room which made me feel so uneasy but finally he said she was fine and the surgery went well. I was SO HAPPY!! He was able to do everything he wanted to do and said the surgery was well worth it for the future surgeries needed for lengthening her leg and stressed how big this surgery was. He reconstructed her underdeveloped hip. Did a bone graft to redo the hip, cut and removed her IT band and other tendons. He said her hip was rotated in a way that was unusual for a short femur and also stressed the amount of soft tissue work that was done. Overall everything he wanted to do was successful and we couldn’t be happier.

We were sent back to the waiting room and were told we could see her shortly. Only I was able to go at first to see her in the recovery room. There she was sucking on a freezie. She looked very pale and that’s where I was told she had lost quite a bit of blood during the surgery and her hemoglobin was quite low 83- should be around 110. The nurse was so so kind and told me she had come out of the anaesthetic pretty quick but was in quite a bit of pain. She didn’t think the nerve block Annabelle had worked very well for her. She was pretty out of it when I saw her but didn’t hesitated to tell me that that special chocolate medicine theh gave her made her too sleepy!! Lol. There she was - my Annabelle. She was ok. I was so happy. I felt like the biggest weight ever had been lifted. She also arrived back with her doll Ellie who too had on a spica cast. Sean joined us shortly and once her pain was managed, vitals were stable and the transport team arrived we were moved to 5A to our room.

The room itself was really nice. There was a little bed for me and we had our own washroom. She was in quite a bit of pain and it wasn’t long before she was given more pain meds. It wasn’t long after that that she projectile vomited them all over me. Lol. She told me it was coming and tried to hold them I yelled for help but all the nurses were busy and it went everywhere. Luckily very little went on her cast which was amazing since we have to keep it super clean.

She was still pretty sleepy but had been drinking lots of fluids which was great. Our nurses we’re in frequently to check on her and do her vitals and so I got very little sleep the first night.

The next day was a hard day. Overall our night seemed good and one of the Ortho residents came to check in on her at 7am and she was great. By 9 am however things made a terrible turn. She had swelled up so much so quickly that all of the sudden her cast was WAY too tight. She was panicking. We had to urgently call the cast team who came up and split open her cast to give her more room. She was totally freaking out as was I. It was too tight in her chest, her belly and her sore leg. That was not fun. It was instant relief however once they opened it up.

Since that traumatizing experience she had a really difficult time with anyone touching her and refused to let anyone turn her over. She uses a double diapering system where a little diaper is stuffed inside the cast and a large diaper goes over it to keep the cast protected. In order for this to work we had to turn her over and man this was a humbling experience.

We had some big feelings today about her cast. ‘Mom! Why did you bring me here!? I told you not to bring me here look what they did to me!’ ‘Why do I have to have a cast and you don’t?!’ ‘I am not bringing this cast home!!’ I told the nurses Annabelle was having a hard go and they put a request in for the child life specialist. She was the highlight of our day. Hannah. Oh my goodness she was amazing. Finally I saw a smile from Annabelle. They made slime together which Annabelle LOVED. Finally she was talking too- she had been so quiet earlier. They played together for an hour and she brought Annabelle so many thoughtful things. She got to know Annabelle and some of the things she liked to do. She brought her a book about bugs and a blue jays hat, some nail polish and stickers and markers to decorate her cast. She gave her a stress ball and made her a bravery bead necklace which included beads for all the brave things she had gone through. She was incredible and I was so grateful for her visit.

All day Saturday I could not fathom the idea of transporting her to a car and driving home. We couldn’t even turn her over!!

We had another decent night but around the clock meds were needed to help her manage the pain. She also had a lot of muscle spasms which really affected her sleep because she would tense her body up in fear of pain and then when she feel sleep she would relax and let her body go and then wake herself up in a panic. They finally gave her a muscle relaxant to help her sleep better- but it made her pretty loopy.

Sunday was a good day we were going home. The residents came in the morning to recast her where they had split her open. They were there at 7am which was amazing so Sean left to take the train in as quick as he could. He was there by 10:30am. We packed up our things and were cleared to go. An amazing nurse Cathy came with a wheelchair and helped us get to our car. The ward was quiet today and so the nurses there seemsed to have more time-I was told it’s because they weren’t able to take on more cases due to staff shortages as a result of covid. Several rooms were vacant which was so disappointing -all because they didn’t have a safe number of staff to care for these patients because of covid.

We left at 12:15pm Had HORRIBLE traffic on the way home but were home by 2:25pm. WE MADE IT.