So then we get to the hospital almost on time at 6:10 am and check in. We saw this lovely sign on the way up that reads Welcome New Patients and Norah's name was the top left one. That was nice of them to do. So why is it that the hospitals always want you there an hour or more early? It takes 5 minutes to weigh the kids and sign the forms. Why did we really need to be up at 4 am? Why did we wait in the rec. room until 7:30? Don't they know my baby is hungry and tired? 
So other than that their rec. room was AMAZING. It had 50 billion toys for every age range. There were pianos, WIIs, Playstations, Lego's, arts and crafts, a big TV with tons of movies, books, basically everything a kid could want short of candy and ice cream. And this is at Shriner's so it was all donated or purchased through donations. It was just awesome. If we had to be stuck somewhere with a hungry tired kid this was the place to be. I think it deserves a million pictures to capture the awesomeness.Little kids area... you can't even see all the toys in bins and buckets and on shelves.
Art area with psycho fish. 
Norah rode the horsey.
Played with a doll house.
Was generally very happy and good.
Now why is it with all of the toys she wants to go bang on the big black storage cabinet??!?!
Ummm, yeah, she found the only loose wires in the room.
Video games, play house, air hockey, etc. It rocked.
Lego and train tables.
One of the 2 pianos....
Globe on top of the piano happened to be turned to Viet Nam
Daddy playing basketball with Norah.
"Ummm, mommy, daddy is throwing a ball inside...."
Sleepy eyes.
Uh oh, time to get ready for surgery.
And then she was Miss Personality. Smiling at the nurses. Waving bye bye.
The doctors even thought she got happy juice in pre-op. She was just chillin'. They drew a smiley on her arm to mark it for the operation. 
Oh yeah, did I mention that our anesthesiologist was about 80 years old. I am not even kidding. I wish I was. She looked older than my grandma. That was pretty scary. The last suck of that precious thumb. Then they took her away.
2 hours later we get the call to come to post-op and we have a screaming baby. They were trying to give her watered down apple juice cut with pedialyte. She was having none of it.
Mama knows baby is hungry!!
And then she calmly passed out. You know, I would scream too if I woke up to that scary clown back there looking at me.
Wonderful post-op nurse, Bob, (he was a cool guy) and peds floor nurse Tracy took really good care of us. Norah had a pile of presents on her bed waiting for her when she got out of surgery. Yes, presents!! She got a cell phone toy that does a lot of things, much more advanced than the ones we have at home and a nursery rhymes book and CD and an interactive book and DVD with DVD remote that the kids can use. That last one was a little out of her age range but she will grow into it. We were very impressed.
Then we moved upstairs to her "room" which was really a quad room. It was really cramped in there as there were 2 other girls that had been there for weeks. One of them was either Amish or Quaker and as the surgeon said, the whole village was there for a visit. They tried to make it nice for us, brought in a little TV and DVDs of Baby Einstein & Elmo's World but we were so so glad we did not have to stay overnight. 
Then back at home and wide awake on Vicodin.
Mom, the drugs are wearing off!!!!
So, as far as the operation goes, they put her under and then tried to get the IV in. It took them over an hour. She has very small rolling veins. ( That runs in my family, btw ;-)) She has over 20 pricks in her arm, hand, ankle, foot and forehead. Poor baby. Then the actual surgery took about 10 minutes the doctor said. After they clipped the band of skin holding her fingers together, they just came apart. Up until that point it was unknown if they were held together by skin or tissue at the base of the finger. So she has 4 little stitches in her fingers. We have yet to see them as our follow-up isn't until the 21st and she has to keep her dressings on until then. She tried to rip them off on the way home from the hospital so now she has a sock over her hand.
2 hours later we get the call to come to post-op and we have a screaming baby. They were trying to give her watered down apple juice cut with pedialyte. She was having none of it.
Mama knows baby is hungry!!
And then she calmly passed out. You know, I would scream too if I woke up to that scary clown back there looking at me.
Wonderful post-op nurse, Bob, (he was a cool guy) and peds floor nurse Tracy took really good care of us. Norah had a pile of presents on her bed waiting for her when she got out of surgery. Yes, presents!! She got a cell phone toy that does a lot of things, much more advanced than the ones we have at home and a nursery rhymes book and CD and an interactive book and DVD with DVD remote that the kids can use. That last one was a little out of her age range but she will grow into it. We were very impressed. 
Then we moved upstairs to her "room" which was really a quad room. It was really cramped in there as there were 2 other girls that had been there for weeks. One of them was either Amish or Quaker and as the surgeon said, the whole village was there for a visit. They tried to make it nice for us, brought in a little TV and DVDs of Baby Einstein & Elmo's World but we were so so glad we did not have to stay overnight. Norah still sleeping right until discharge.
Then back at home and wide awake on Vicodin.
Mom, the drugs are wearing off!!!!
So, as far as the operation goes, they put her under and then tried to get the IV in. It took them over an hour. She has very small rolling veins. ( That runs in my family, btw ;-)) She has over 20 pricks in her arm, hand, ankle, foot and forehead. Poor baby. Then the actual surgery took about 10 minutes the doctor said. After they clipped the band of skin holding her fingers together, they just came apart. Up until that point it was unknown if they were held together by skin or tissue at the base of the finger. So she has 4 little stitches in her fingers. We have yet to see them as our follow-up isn't until the 21st and she has to keep her dressings on until then. She tried to rip them off on the way home from the hospital so now she has a sock over her hand. On a side note, we were really impressed with the service we got at Shriners. We learned a lot about the hospital while we were there. There are 22 in the U.S. with different specialties at different hospitals. It costs $1.6 million per day to run the hospitals and it all comes from donations. Our surgeon had 33 years of experience and works at Children's Hospital and has done work at the Mayo Clinic. The surgeries performed there are all free to the patients but a lot of people do not know about them. I wish that we had been able to have her cleft lip repair done there but that specialty is performed in the Chicago hospital and we figured that staying in Chicago for a few weeks would cost just as much as paying through our insurance company. So as nurse Tracy said, get the word out!
I will post more about Norah's recovery probably tomorrow. She is up now and getting into everything around my desk. Argh....
7 comments:
I'm from the Chicago area and trying to think where the Shriner's hospital is? I vaguely thing the near western suburb of Oak Park, but I'm really not sure; and I have lived here my whole life,
Holy cow. 20 IV attempts? I hope that wasn't all the same person trying. Norah looks like she was a real trooper. Hope she's feeling better.
I will pray for a fast healing. She is growing so fast.
Cathy
Very impressive with regards to Shriners. So happy to hear this surgery went so much better than the last. We were saying lots of prayers for all of you!
LOL,
Granny Janny and Papa NeNe
I'm so glad that she is doing OK, I have been thinking of you! I'm also glad that the surgery seemed to be a little less invasive than expected.
Poor little Norah, she is such a trooper, hopefully, she is too young to remember these ordeals that she went through, good things she has the best treatments from the hospital and her parents. Hope she will heal fast, so her parents can relax and have a good rest.
Mimi.
What a tropper! Glad she is on the mend.
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