The Veldmans: Surgery

Ava had her surgery yesterday (an umbilical hernia repair) and recovery is going better than I could have ever anticipated. We were a little uncertain going into things on Monday morning. We received a phone call from our surgeons office at 2:30 Friday afternoon saying that his father was ill and he was leaving town, however one of his partners could do the surgery at the same time on Monday. We debated about this since I really fell in love with "Dr Steve" at Ava's pre-op appointment. We opted to go on with the surgery as planned since we had the day off and had been trying to prepare Ava for the day. We met Dr. Rich just prior to Ava's surgery. I must say that I was not impressed. He planned on intubating her rather than using an oral airway, planned on giving us no prescription pain meds like Dr. Steve had planned on doing, and was not going to do her surgical dressing how I had hoped. When all was said it done, she did fine with the intubation, she didn't need the oxycodone, and I got my surgical dressing.

Ava was a rockstar at the hospital. I have to say that Children's does such a great job catering to the kids, making things as not scary as possible. Everybody that we encountered was friendly and had a smile on their face. They have redone the surgical area since we were there last year. It is very nice. We got to stay in the same room pre and post op which was nice, and had the same nurse. The child life specialist came in and went over the "princess mask" with Ava before she went back to the OR. Nate went back with her again. He said that she did a great job and didn't seem scared or intimidated at all by all of the stuff in the OR. He held her until she was out, helped put her on the operating room table, and was then sent out. I then sent him out to get us lunch while we waited for Ava. If you're stuck in the hospital you might as well enjoy Cossetta's. :)

I think that Ava almost enjoyed yesterday. She woke up and had Jello and apple juice for breakfast. She had never had jello, and we don't allow her to have juice. She got to play with some new toys as we registered at the hospital. She got to smell lots of lipsmackers and spread them around for her "princess mask" (oxygen mask to put her out). She got more juice, and pretty much spent the afternoon watching Dora and Mickey Mouse before going for a walk.

I was worried that she would wake up in pain this morning since the local anesthetic was obviously gone and the Ibuprofen I gave her before bed had worn off. Then at 6 am I hear a little voice on the monitor singing "Five little monkeys jumping on the bed". I have to say that it was the cutest thing. She sat in her bed talking and singing to her animals for 45 minutes. She was then up and as active as ever. I didn't even have to give her any ibuprofen today. I would have never guessed that she had surgery yesterday. I am a little concerned about her incision. There was some bloody drainage on the steri-strips last night (which I wasn't surprised about), but her belly button looks a little odd. I'll take the tegaderm off tomorrow and will hopefully be able to better assess it. We don't want any problems with it over Easter weekend.

Wishing you a wonderful Easter weekend!