Amelia's Surgery

     I wanted to first thank all our friends and family for all the prayers and well wishes for our little Amelia.  She has been such a trooper throughout this whole thing.  It's been a rough week, but it's getting better. 
     Last Thursday morning we had to be at the hospital at 6:30am for the 8:30am procedure.  We arrived on time and got checked in and back to the pre-op room fairly quickly.  The hospital is very kid friendly and has all kinds of things for the kids to do.  They had a play area, games, books, a computer, and they even had markers the kids could use to write and decorate their sheets with.  It's funny that they allowed them to do this because just before we went back to the pre-op room we had to have a talk(the 100th talk) with Amelia about appropriate things to write on.  The night before we found the number '40' written in ink on the back of Daniel's new Lazy Boy leather recliner he got for his birthday.  She really enjoyed writing on the sheet, playing Match Game, Connect 4, the play area, and the computer.  They put the kids to sleep with gas, so she got to decorate her mask.  They gave her a choice of chapstick flavors to rub on the inside to make it smell good and then she got to put stickers all over the outside.  She was assigned to a Child Life Specialist that talked with us and helped Amelia with her mask and making her feel comfortable.  Our Child Life Specialist's name was Julie which was so comforting to us.  She had an uncanny resemblance to my sister-in-law named Julie that passed away a couple of years ago.  We were in the pre-op room for almost 2 hours and then they wheeled her away for the surgery.
    They told us it would take about 45 minutes, so we went to the cafeteria to get a bite to eat and before we could get back upstairs my cousin was coming to get us.  My cousin was the surgeon.  He said she did great and that we would be able to go back to the recovery room shortly.  They told us before the surgery that children tend to come out of the anesthesia fighting, kicking, yelling, etc.  I was NOT prepared, even with the warning.  I heard her screaming as soon as we walked into the recovery area.  When I got to her a nurse was holding her and she was kicking her legs, waving her arms, and crying out.  They had me sit in a recliner and they placed her in my lap where she continued to kick and scream on and off for 30-45 minutes.  It was horrible.  She would dose off for a few minutes and then kick and scream for a few minutes.  She was pulling at her IV too.  I was crying and I kept thinking, "What have I done to my child."  Finally she fell asleep in my arms and slept for about 45 minutes.  When she woke up she was sore, but was back to her regular self, no more Monster Amelia.
     We got home around 11:30am.  Amelia had a good rest of the day and Friday and Saturday were good as well.  Sunday she started hurting worse and she didn't want to eat or drink much.  She also started running a low grade fever.  Mon., Tues., and Wed. were really rough, her fever increased and she was in a lot of pain.  Yesterday she finally started improving and she did not have a fever.  Today as been good so far.  I hope that she continues to improve over the weekend and that she will be able to return to Preschool on Monday or Tuesday.
     We took some pictures the day of the surgery.  The last 4 of are her throat the day before and of her throat during the surgery, if you don't want to see those I have left a large space between the regular pictures and those, some people may be grossed out by them.

****BEWARE, Possibly gross to you picture below this!****