Surgery Update

Lily had her surgery early Monday morning. She did great going back into surgery and had no problem leaving us. She was feeling pretty good after the medication and was probably unaware that we weren't there. She had a double z plasty palatal lengthening; cleft lip revision; cleft lip rhinoplasty with septoplasty. The surgery took 4 hours and she was very combative coming out of the anesthesia. It was very hard! Fred and I went back to recovery first and then my sister, Grace (lily's cousin) and my mom came back. When she saw Grace she calmed down and eventually fell asleep. Grace rubbed her leg and talked sweetly to her. These girls have such a sweet and special bond. She did pretty good in the hopsital. We kept her on pain control with morphin every two hours. You could tell when the morphin would wear off!
Fred left to go get the kids off the school bus and my mom stayed with me and Lily. The kids came up to see Lily that afternoon. It was hard for Morgan to see her like that. They stayed for a brief visit and then Fred took them to dinner and then home and my mom stayed with me until my sister came up to spend the night with me. The evening went pretty well. I slept in the bed with Lily...the very small hospital bed (very uncomfortable!!!). I wanted to make sure that she didn't mess with any of her stitches or nose plugs while she was sleeping. She woke up during the night and finally went to the bathroom. Thank goodness!
Fred came back in the morning after he got the kids off to school. The doctor came in just as he arrived. Lily was very unhappy when he was there and wanted her IV out. She was telling everyone to leave and not to touch her. She was very bossy the entire time! So funny. We were able to leave the hopsital about 8:45 that morning after she ate some eggs and pancakes and drank some fluids. Lily's doctor wanted us to bring her by his office on our way home to do Frequency Specific Microcurrent (FSM) on her before we went home. He is big believer in alternative medicine. So, why not right...nothing to loose. If she can be treated for pain without pain meds I am all for it. Our last experience with surgery a year ago was not good with pain control. Lily was in a lot of pain for several weeks following surgery, especially at night. Supposedly there is a frequency that he uses for pain and one for emotional trauma. It took about 20 minutes per treatment. She was not happy about being there, but during the last 5 minutes of the trauma treatment she fell asleep on me. He said that most of the time they only need one treatment.
We came home and she slept off an on. She was prescribed hydrocodone for pain and I gave that to her at 12:30 and then didn't have to give it to her again until bedtime around 8 (for precaution). Her temperment was very good. She went to bed with me about 8:30 and woke up at 2 and wanted to go to her bed. So, I gave her antibiotic (has to be given every 8 hours) and some more hydrocodone and she went right back to sleep until 6:45 this morning. She doesn't sleep soundly, a little restless, but I will take that. I am going to have to say the FSM was a success for her. Believe me when I say that I am very skeptical about this kind of stuff, but when you child is hurting you will do what ever it takes to help control their pain even if it is a little unconventional. We will see how the next few days go.
I am going to post a picture of her for those of you that may have to go through this one day. Not to scare you, but to prepare you. I know I would want to know all I could. She will have the tubes with packing in her nose until Tuesday and then they will take that out and replace it with tubes that I can take in and out for cleaning. She will be able to breath through those tubes! She has a lot of swelling right now and some bruising, so it is a little hard to tell how anything is going to look. She doesn't like when I have to clean everyhting, but we get through it. It's important, so we do it. Please keep her in your prayers that she has a speedy recovery and the swelling goes down soon. Overall, she has done very good with it all....PRAISE GOD!