Thursday, January 22, 2009

We're Home!

I'm glad the hospital stay is over. When we arrived Monday morning I could tell Kaitlyn knew we were there for her. She was anxious and kept saying "poo poo potty" to get out of the room. As soon as I would get her into the bathroom she would cry while saying "noooo". She didn't need to go potty she just wanted to run away.
It helped that I brought a bag of toys. When she wasn't worried about what may be going on she was playing. We learned Makka Pakka and a Tombleboo can fit in the Barney car just fine (see the yellow car by the rail with Makk Pakka standing in it).

The nurses told me I didn't have to take Kaitlyn's sleeper off that they would do it later, but she's my baby so I thought I should have the honor of doing it for the last time presurgery. I waited until they drugged her to make the switch. Even with her limp and loopy she tried to fight me about removing her clothes. However she only gave a brief fight.
It was really odd to see her on this drug. She looked like a special ed child. I don't say that to be rude, but to give you a better understanding on how limp she was and odd her behavior became once the drug was administered. To be honest for a moment I panicked when she looked at me and gave a sluggish half (one side of the mouth) smile. The drug was supposed to take all her anxiety away and wipe the memory of the morning out of her mind. I'm not sure about her memory, but the girl still had fight in her. At one point I was trying to pull the gown down to cover her diaper better and she freaked out, bent her knees up to her chest while screeching "nooo". Also, when the anesthesiologist was carrying her away she started crying and trying to fight her. The lady slowed her pace and started singing and swaying. I had to quickly walk out. I couldn't handle watching my baby cry while someone carried her away.
I was supposed to be taken back to the recovery room while Kaitlyn was waking up. I was told I would be the first person she would see. However, I walked in the room and she was fighting the nurse. She wanted all the wrapping taken off her left hand. She ended up keeping that club-hand until yesterday. She did a bit of yanking on her IV and it started to bleed. I called in the nurse and after taking most of the wrapping off she left the room to get something. Kaitlyn started wiggling her fingers. Suddenly the IV line fell out. My mom was there and she grabbed Kaitlyn's hand, applying pressure to stop the bleeding. I pinched the IV off and called the nurse back in. They had put a spare "just in case" line in Kaitlyn's foot so they moved the IV to her foot.
Here she is resting on Tuesday. As you can see the cast goes all the way down her right leg to her toes. You can only see four of her toes sticking out the end. I'm a bit torn about her having a free leg. We had a hard weekend which left me looking forward to her being immobile. LOL... The tan strip on her left leg was just tape holding down her catheter line. By the way, the catheter fell out yesterday. I discovered her with a wet diaper. The nurse thought it was just sweat, but when she had a wet diaper an hour later we knew it was pee. With the catheter gone the epidural had to be cut way back. The wire coming from her toe in the picture is a heart rate monitor which she got to lose when the epi was gone yesterday afternoon.

I have a couple more pictures of her wagon rides (which she REALLY loved), her sleeping belly to belly with my mom (picture the casted leg in the air) and her here at my parents house.

5 comments:

MistySkye said...

Poor baby, she looks really bummed out. I know this has to be hard for her, and I'm sure especially for you. We love you guys, I'll be sending stickers soon!

Hilary said...

Oh man I am sooooo glad that everything went smoothly with her surgery. I have been wondering! We mailed her our package Tuesday so hopefully that will brighten her day!! Still praying for you guys and her pain and recovery!!!

Carlotta said...

I'm just reading about lil Kaitlyn, coming upon your blog via a blogging friend. I will be praying for her recovery. She's a feisty lil thing isn't she? I will also be sending her some stickers.
~Carlotta~

Shelly said...

I'm so glad to see that she is home. I won't say feeling better, but at least she probably feels a lot better about being home! I, too, am surprised that the one leg is free--not at all what I'm used to seeing after this type of surgery. My first envelope of stickers is ready to go in the mail (I got home too late to catch the postman today). So it will go out first thing tomorrow morning. Got a couple other things up my sleeve, but must wait a bit longer before that! My prayers and love have been going your way. Give Kaitlyn a big hug and kiss from all her "blogger aunts". You and Neal try to get some rest so that you can continue to care for her without getting totally stressed!
~Shelly~

Anonymous said...

Poor thing looks so uncomfortable! Sorry I haven't been reading the last few weeks (little media/internet hiatus, with the whole inauguration making me sick), so I had no idea things had come so far so quickly with Kaitlyn's surgery.
My prayers are with you all for a quick, speedy recovery--and for patience, which I'm sure everyone will need!