Arianna's Surgery

Well, it has been awhile since I posted last. This has been a very busy time for us. But I wanted to write about one of the things that happened in January. Arianna was born with a skin tag and the doctor was concerned so they did an MRI back in November and found that her spinal cord was attached to a fatty tumor (non-cancerous). So, we scheduled her to go in and have her skin tag removed, untether her spinal cord and take out the fatty tumor. Of course, as the time approached for her to go to the hospital, I got a bit nervous and anxious for my baby girl. She was only 5 months old and was going to have major surgery. What parent wouldn't be nervous? Monday, January 11, Arianna and I arrived at the East Tennessee Children's Hospital at 7:00 am in the morning. First we got registered then they called us back where I had to change her into her little hospital gown and then they lab tech came in to put the IV in and draw some blood. At about 9am we went back to the surgery where I had to say good-bye to my baby and wait for it all to be over with. Steve showed up around 10 and we waited. It seemed like a very long time but it was only 3 1/2 hours when we got the call that the doctor was done and that we would be able to come back and see her soon. The surgery was a success and our neurologist, Dr. Harris, came down to tell us that everything went as planned. It took about another hour before we could go back to see her. She looked so small and pitiful in the big crib they had her in. The first night was very bad for us. We had to keep her laying down and could not pick her up. She was in a lot of pain so they gave her some morphine at the beginning but I could tell that it was not working very well. It would last about 30 minutes and then she would be upset again. Her heart rate kept going up and her O2 Sat dropped so they had to give her oxygen. She couldn't hold her formula down. All I could do for her was to hold her little hand and cry along with her. Finally around midnight she was able to drink a little bit of formula so the nurse gave her some Lortab, a very strong pain medicine. Lortab worked wonders. It was still a pretty rough night but finally her levels were going back to normal and she was able to get a little sleep. By the next morning we were able to pick her up and hold her and she looked 100% better. Steve and I were so afraid of hurting her unintentionally that the first couple days that we held her we had a egg crate mattress under her to keep her as comfortable as possible. We ended up staying in the hospital until Saturday because she wasn't taking her feedings very well and they wanted to make sure her bladder was functioning properly. It was a very long week and by Saturday, I was glad to take her home. After a couple of weeks at home, she seemed to be back to her old self again. It was amazing to see how fast she healed. She was such a good, brave baby girl and I am so glad that it is all over with and everything turned out great!