Surgery

It finally happened! Zoey finally had her surgery to close her cleft palate. And I am so glad it's behind us now! I tell you, the last 6 weeks have been torture waiting to get this over with. It makes me grateful that I really made a concentrated effort to not waste away her infancy by thinking of her surgery for the first 12 months.

We had to be at the hospital at 830am. Zoey was starting to get hungry by this point. We let her suck on an empty bottle to pacify her. We took it away to take this picture. Can you tell she was starting to get grumpy?

Poor baby. By about 1030am, she had HAD it! Poor, little girl was starving and we couldn't do a thing to calm her down. I had to leave the room. Luckily, that was the only time I lost it during this whole experience. She was so mad that we weren't feeding her!

Cory got her calmed down and asleep. She slept for a good 45 minutes while we waited for her turn for surgery.

That little nap made her feel better, she awoke not quite so agitated.

The anesthesiologist finally gave her the "good stuff", a sedative called Versed. I remember all too well medicating children with Versed before surgery. Most of the time, it wasn't easy to give cause it tastes so YUCKY, but Zoey slurped it right up! She was so hungry!

Getting a little drowsy...

Handing Zoey over to the anesthesiologist.

Zoey had the cutest, little anesthesiologist. The surgeon said he'd entrust her with his own kids, so it's always reassuring to get a vote of confidence like that. She was in good hands.

We waited for about 3 hours and then they called "Zoey's mommy" to the recovery room. She was really groggy and crying. She sounded hoarse from being intubated. I held her in recovery for about 2 hours and then they transferred her to the floor for the night. Here she is with her bottle again, except she got apple juice in it this time instead of air!

So, they put a stitch through her tongue to keep her from pushing on the roof of her mouth (she has one now, yippee!) and they taped the suture to the side of her cheek so that they could also pull her tongue out if she started to gag. Kinda weird, but I had seen this a lot before in recovering these cases from surgery so it didn't really bother me and it didn't seem to bother her too much either.

Zoey had a really rough night. When she was awake, she cried a lot and wouldn't let me comfort her. I'd try to stroke her hair or pat her bottom, she wouldn't let me hold her or touch her. If I tried, she hit me away. All I could do was put up the side rails and standby to make sure she didn't hurt herself. They had her arm taped and boarded where her IV was and it she was really upset about that. By the morning, she sat up in her bed and really perked up. But for every person that came in to see her, she held up her arm to show them. I don't know if she was looking for sympathy or for someone to take it off!

Just had to document that great bed head she got!

She was feeling much better as the day progressed but she was really antsy and so I hurried along the discharge process so that we could go home and get some real rest. Ever since we've been home, she's done GREAT! I am amazed by her speedy recovery! I didn't expect that she'd be back to her normal self (as long as she's got tylenol on board) so soon! It's been fun to feed her without the worry of it getting into her nose. And since she also got ear tubes in, it's been fun to see her enjoy her toys even more that make sounds.

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I'm so grateful that everything has gone so smoothly. I'm grateful for a wonderful surgeon who created a roof to her mouth, something that didn't exist there before and all he did was use his skills and her existing tissues. He even gave her a uvula! I'm grateful for my mom who flew into town (twice) to help me take care of kids and laundry and meals. I'm grateful for friends and family who kept Zoey and us in their thoughts and prayers and inquired as often as they could as to her status and took Maggie to school and brought us meals and other needed things. I'm grateful for our bishop who took the time to visit Zoey to make sure she was okay. I'm grateful for the Priesthood and the nice blessing that Cory gave Zoey the night before her surgery, which gave us all comfort. I'm grateful for Tylenol with Codeine. I'm grateful for this experience which has made us stronger and wiser, more patient and grateful. I'm grateful this is behind us now so that we can move forward now!