Haydenn goes under the knife!

Tuesday Nov. 9th Haydenn went in to have her tonsils and adenoids taken out. When we went in to the ENT he had told me that he never does surjury on anyone smaller then 3 years old. But her tonsils were so big she couldn't wait. A lot of the time her tonsils were so big they were touching, making it hard for her to eat anything and she was holding her breath when she sleeps because her tonsils were so big they were cutting off her air way (super scary!)! He warned me that because she was so small they would have to admit her and she would spend at least 24 hours in the hospital.

I was a little nervous the day of surjury, Haydenn holds her breath till she has a seizure and last time she had to be sedated things didn't go so well. When we were in pre-op she started out being a little crusty and wanted nothing to do with anybody, but this nurse sent straight from heaven came in and brought bubbles, and toys and a brand new teddy bear for her to keep. Haydenn loved her! She let Haydenn ride in a wagon back to the operating room, and Haydenn was waving and blowing me kisses and saying bye Mom love you! I was so grateful, it was so much nicer then having them pry her out of my arms and her screaming the whole time as they are walking away.

Haydenn checking out our matching bracelets! Don't you love her hat! They brought it to her and she loved it, amd wore it most of the time!

This is the nurse that was sent straight from heaven. She was so good with Haydenn and stayed with her the whole time! It made it so much easier to say goodbye to her knowing she was happy!

Haydenn surounded by all the toys they brought for her, including her new best friend, teddy bear that never left her side after surgery!

The surgery went really well. The Dr. said it couldn't have gone any better. But he said she had started holding her breath. When they took us back to see Haydenn in the recovery area. There was a nurse with her and she was in the middle of a seizure. The nurse looked really nervous and was really glad to see us. From this point on the day was pretty much a nightmare! The nurse kept telling us, he was so glad that we had seen her do this before and that this wasn't something totally foreign to her.

Haydenn in the recovery area trying to come out of the anesthesia. Her oxygyn level kept dropping into the 20-30's when she would have a seizure so she had to be on oxygyn the whole time, which she absolutly hated! This picture makes me so sad every time I see it, I'm just so glad it's over!

We had to wait in the recovery area till Haydenn came completly out of the anesthesia. The problem was that every time she would start to come out of it she would start crying and have a seizure, when she would have a seizure she would come out of it fighting mad which would send her into another seizure. So for the next several hours I would just hold her in my arms while she would have seizure after seizure. She would relax for maybe a minute or two and then start all over again. The nurse stayed in our recovery room with us the whole time monitoring her. We were having a hard time telling if she was coming out of the anesthesia or if she was just sleepy from all the seizures. They couldn't give her any pain medicine till they were sure she was out of the anesthesia, so after a couple of hours I knew she was in alot of pain which in my opinion was probably adding to her seizures. After several hours they finally decided to go ahead and move her up to her room and see if we could ger her comfortable enough that she would settle down.

On the way to her room she continued to have seizures and you could tell that the nurses were really nervous. They basically just watched as I would take care of her. During one of her seizures she was thrashing around and her I.V. got pulled out she was squirting blood everywhere. So I was trying to hold her down during a seizure and she was thrashing around and blood was going everywhere. Luckily my Mom was there and a couple of nurses to help control the situation. It was after that, they decided to move her to the I.C.U. But every time we would try to move her she would start into another fit of seizures. So moving her again was not a good option. So they brought the I.C.U. to us. We had an I.C.U. nurse with us the whole time as well as a regular nurse.

She had, had surjury that morning at 8am and it was now about 2pm and still no pain meds. We finally talked the nurses into letting her have some medicine so that it would hopfully help her settle down and sleep. The first dose she got seemed to help, for the first time she was sleeping! Her seizures continued every time she would wake up or if a nurse came in to get her vitals or something. The next dose of meds she got seemed to give her kind of a buzz. She was alert and smiling for the first time. She asked to watch Dora and was acting a little more like her self. She was on her high for about an hour and then she would crash and sleep waking up with seizures. This went on for the rest of that night and the next day. However the buzz that the meds gave her seemed to get worse. About 20 minutes after getting her meds she would be on a total high. Her nurse brought her some yogurt, apple sauce, and pudding hoping she would eat something since she hadn't eaten a single thing and hopefully it would give her something to do. Well she just sat there passing the food between me and my Mom. Before we could even take a bite she would pass it to someone else. We tryed playing games, watching movies, and doing everything we could to keep her busy. Then almost instantly she would crash and be out. We did get a good laugh when the nurse brought her the food she told the nurse "YUM DELICIOSO!". The nurse turned around and said did she just say that? We were all laughing so hard, can you tell she loves Dora!

After she had got some medicine she finally got some sleep! At this point she had already pulled out the I.V. and was fighting the oxygyn. The nurses turned up the oxygyn the whole way and we would just lay it next to her trying not to let it touch her. If she felt it, she would wake up and start into a fit of seizures. Talk about being a princess, we were all catering to her every need! But she deserved it!

All of these ups and downs made me a little nervous and after talking to the Dr. we thought it might be better instead of giving her the hard meds to maybe just give her tylynol. This whole time all the Dr.'s were baffled as to what to do with her. Nobody wanted to take responsibility or do anything. So basically I was totally taking care of her and they were just monitoring. The on call Dr. at the hospital did talk to a neuroligist who suggested that we do an EKG on her heart, just to make sure everything was normal. The EKG came back normal and at the point I was ready to be out of that hospital! The Dr. agreed to let me go home since there was nothing that they were really doing.

When we got home her seizures calmed way down and she was only having about 5-6 of them a day. I followed up with my peditrition, mostly so I could get the referal to the neuroligist. My peditrition was really mad that they had let me out of the hospital and wanted me to go back. I told her I would go back if her seizures got worse but at this point they were doing nothing and I really just wanted to see a neuroligist. She gave me the referal and we were on our way. The neuroligist can't get Haydenn in to see anyone until Jan 19th, but they did put her on an emergancy wait list. So if anyone cancels we will be the first to get in. I stayed in Mesa at my Moms for about a week to just make sure she was healing and not going to get any worse. By the time we went home her seizures were down to maybe one a day and sometimes none at all. Her recovery was slow, but slowly she has gotten back to her normal self. We do miss her low raspy voice that is now a high soft voice. But mostly we are glad that for the most part this is behind us!

Haydenn on a high with her meds! It was so good to see a smile on her face. Even if it was for just a little bit!

Thank goodness for her Ariel blanket her sippy and her new Teddy Bear, all were such a comfort for her!

Day 2 at the hospital and feeling a little better, she thought it was so cool that the sound of the TV came out of the remote!

A huge thank you to my family and especially to my Mom! I couldn't have done it without her! Josh stayed in Eagar to help out with the rest of the kids and so I relied on my Mom a lot!