Home from the Hospital...AGAIN!

My sweet brave girl had to go back in the hospital on Sunday. We are home and fine, now...but we had a little scare. On Friday Eden broke out and started itching intensely. I assumed it was a reaction to the pain medicine from her surgery so I immediately discontinued it and started her on Benadryl. Over the next 24 hours it worsened. By then her skin looked like she had a sunburn all over and she was leaving scabs from scratching. Needless to say, she was miserable...while only 3 days post-op from a 5-hour plastic surgery. After trying some Zyrtec with no improvement I called the Children's after-hours number from our post-op instructions (this was Sunday morning).

The plastics resident on-call told me to take her to our local ER (remember, we had surgery in B'ham but live in Atlanta). Long story short, the dr. in the ER said it could be an allergy, but looked just as much like an infection (she was running fever by this point with an elevated heart rate.) They took some blood and hooked her up to an IV to give fluids and antibiotics while she took photos with her phone and sent them to B'ham. The B'ham folks said they couldn't tell from the photos so would have to see her in person. The ER dr. didn't feel comfortable releasing us...so Eden and I ended up being medically transported to Birmingham to the Children's ER. The ER docs there agreed it could be infection or reaction to meds...not sure. Plastics cleared her surgical site so we were turned over to pediatric medicine and admitted.

We spent 2 nights for observation and IV meds. We still don't really know for sure what it was. But I'm thankful they were extra careful. So, we are back home, again. The photo above is Eden being strapped to the stretcher (in her car seat) for the ambulance ride.

She was such a trooper, but cried many tears because she just wanted to go home. We hope this is the end of our saga. Her lip/nose is healing great and we are so grateful for that. It could have been so much worse. I'll continue to keep you posted on our progress.

Love you all!

Surgery Went Great

Hey everyone. So sorry it has taken me so long to update you all. Hopefully most of you followed our progress on facebook. We don't have a laptop so I didn't have access to a computer to update the blog...I hadn't thought of that before we left.

So, we are back home in Atlanta and Eden is recovering well. We arrived in Birmingham on Tuesday and went to the Children's Hospital for a Child Life tour that afternoon. Roxanna was wonderful and this did so much to help ease Eden's anxiousness. They took us around and showed us pre-surgery, every step of pre-op procedure (vitals, gown, etc.). They showed us recovery where she would wake up and what her bed/room would look like where we would spend the night. It was well worth the time. They even gave her a mask to take home and "practice" breathing to go to sleep.

Our surgery was scheduled for 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday. We arrived at 9:30 a.m. and they took us right back to the pre-op waiting room. Eden did great but I KNEW the minute they tried to get her to do anything (change clothes, etc.) she would fall apart so I requested some "silly juice" to relax her. Boy did it work! They gave it to her 10 minutes before they took her. It took me a while to get her to drink it...she was scared, bless her heart. I finally got it down her and it took effect quickly. Sweet Roxanna from child life came and went back with Eden, so she had a familiar face. They took her back at exactly noon, and the surgery lasted until 5:00...it was a LONG day!

Everything went well. Unfortunately, Dr. Grant said he wasn't able to do some of the nose work he had intended to so we will have another minor surgery for that. Not sure when that will be but I'm guessing it will be a same-day procedure. The most dramatic change to her appearance is that she now has a visible top lip. He reattached some muscles and pulled them up so that her top lip was lifted. It is still swollen a lot, but I can tell it is going to look great. One surprise...he closed the holes that were in the base of her nose. This will prevent food and air escape from the fistulas (holes) in the roof of her mouth from her gum line cleft. I didn't know he was going to do this and she noticed it almost immediately after she woke up. "Mommy, are my holes gone after the surgery?"

We spent one night in the hospital and were released late morning on Thursday. We drove halfway home and stayed at my mom's for one night and then came on home. I found her doing a back bend yesterday so needless to say, she is feeling fine. She has had minimal pain. The biggest bother to her are all of the stitches inside her nose, which make her feel like she needs to blow constantly. Also, she is still pretty self-conscious about how she looks and gets upset when she looks in the mirror. "Mommy, I don't like my stitches." Pray for us as we navigate this.

We have an order for no aggressive physical activity until our post-op visit 3 weeks from now. Otherwise, we can do as much as she feels like doing.

Thank you all so much for your prayers. I will keep you updated. Have a great weekend!