The big girl with her little hospital gown on. So sweet!
On Wednesday Nyla had her first surgery and hopefully one of her last! Mommy was not a horrible wreck but nervous enough about it. She had tubes put in her ears and her adenoids were taken out.
She hasn't had a huge amount of ear infections in the past year and a half it's just the most recent ones have lingered. She had a double ear infection right before Naomi was born that lasted 2 months! We tried 3 different medications and her ears finally cleared up. The bad thing? 1-2 weeks later she had another double ear infection. We were told to get a consult from an ENT and glad we did. It turns out not only she needed tubes for the ear infections but that she wasn't hearing at 100% out of her left ear. We noticed she wasn't finishing her words or pronouncing them clearly and now we knew why. We scheduled her surgery and patiently waited for the 2 weeks to go by so it could get done. It was a tough 2 weeks because Nyla was fussy from not feeling great and Naomi was sick with yet another cold and a little cough. We were more than ready for everyone to get well again!
The days before we had a lot of people asking when her surgery was and all the details. While some said they would pray for us, others said, "Oh that's no big deal." People, it is a big deal, it's surgery! Be sympathetic, especially if you have children that had the surgery. It may not be a big deal to you now, but it was when you were going through it. Don't you remember? I understand why people say that, they're trying to make you feel better but you don't know my feelings on the matter, it's my child, my baby and it's surgery. It's a big deal to me! That's something I have to remember when people tell me their little one is having surgery. Instead I'll try and remember to say, "Yes, Nyla had that when she was around 18 months. It's tough having to see your little one go through that but it's so helpful in the end. We'll be praying for your family." See how much nicer that is? Again, it's something for me to try and remember to do.
Thankfully, we had a super awesome Doctor. My dad has a friend that's a doctor and told him that whenever we needed to see someone let him know and he'd refer us. He referred us to someone he knows and he was great. He was sweet to Nyla, explained things clearly, made us feel comfortable and he loves Jesus; that's a huge deal to us. That's why my dad's friend referred us to him, one of the reasons anyways. And the best thing, he prayed with the three of us before they took her back. I mean really, how great is that? That meant the world to us! And it made it a little easier to let her go.
After the doctor left a nurse came in and asked Nyla if she wanted a warm blanket and Nyla went right to her and away she went. Thankfully they didn't make a big deal about it and just took her. Of course I cried. That's my baby they took away. I thought it would've been harder but I held it together. So out to waiting room we went, hoping it wouldn't be the longest 30 minutes of our lives. Our Pastor came and sat with us while she was in surgery and that helped pass the time. We talked a little about the surgery but more about other things and that helped me not focus so much on what was going on. And before we knew it we were being called back to see our sweet girl!
We were told to be ready for her "thrashing" in recovery and yes she was a thrasher! She scratched the right side of her face a little, was pulling at her iv and when she saw me started yelling, "mamamamama." They got a chair in our little recovery area and once we got her focus off pulling her iv off, she calmed down. I rocked with her and rubbed her head. If I stopped she would say "more" and sign it too. For one hour we sat there so they could get some fluids in her. It was a nice one hour of snuggle time with my baby. Y'all, it's rare for her to sit still for more than 5 minutes so you better believe I soaked up every second!
The hour passed pretty quickly, we got her dressed and were walking back into the waiting room headed for the exit and she threw up on Daniel. Yuck! It wasn't much, it didn't scare her but we went back in to talk to our nurse who had warned us it could happen. She gave us a throw up bag but thought it was probably an isolated incident. We got to the car, buckled her in, Daniel sat in the back with her just in case she got sick and good thing, because she did. She started coughing and then threw up a couple more times but was fine once we got moving. She dozed on the way home and went right to her bed where she was zonked for three hours. That was one of the best naps since she was a baby! When she woke up she had some water, scarfed some noodles and grapes and played as usual. We even went outside for a little while.
These past few days have been pretty good. She gets in her fussy periods but that usually means it's time for some tylenol, her breath is stinky from her adenoids coming out and her throat healing, but she's eating and sleeping well and getting plenty of fluids. She's up 1 or 2 times a night because she's hurting so she gets tylenol and a snuggle in the chair but she'll go right back to sleep after that. All-in-all we had a good experience with our ENT's office, our ENT, the surgery center and recovery.
We're glad she had the surgery and have noticed a difference in her speech already. I noticed it the next day actually. We go back in 2 weeks for her post-operation appointment and hope to have a glowing report. And then maybe we'll finally be able to have her 18-month well check-up, a month late!
