Looooooooooong Day

I had Natalie at the hospital at 5:30 am and I am so exhausted already now a little after 6 pm.  It was the same pre-op routine we've been through twice before- a set of vitals, a lot of paperwork in the first room, then to the pre-op waiting room, more paperwork, more verification of who (Natalie), what (shunt revision surgery), where (her head, duh), and why (previous shunt wasn't working correctly).  At 7:30 they took her back to begin surgery.  I took that opportunity to have some breakfast downstairs in the cafeteria and get some milk up to the PICU for her overnight stay.  A little after 10:00 her neurosurgeon came in and got me.  She did really well through the surgery and she was out.  He replaced the shunt and the catheter going into her brain.  The previous one had worn away the brain surrounding the catheter and she had a 5mm (or so) hole where fluid was just leaking out freely every time there was a pressure increase.  He put something over that and sealed up the hole and created a new path for the new catheter and sealed it since not sealing it last time (which is normal) didn't work for her, obviously.  He also tacked down her skin and tried to rough up the area so that it would need to scar down and will hopefully heal back the way it is supposed to be instead of the way it was.

She already had the tube out by the time I went over to the PICU.  She ate a bit from a bottle and did well with that.  We had to leave her flat on the bed for a while.  The neurosurgeon came in and saw her this afternoon and gave his ok for me to pick her up.  I held her and fed her just before I left, she threw up all over me, but I think she was in a bit of pain and the last of her pain medicine had worn off.  The nurse gave her some tylenol and was going to let her calm down a bit before she tried to feed her again.  I am going to have some dinner and then head back to the hospital tonight for a little while.  I need to be home before it gets too late tonight, though, because I am just beat.

He ordered a CT scan on her, and she'll have that tomorrow morning.  As long as everything looks ok with it, she'll be coming home tomorrow.  We'll be back at our house before Lauren's birthday on Sunday!  Yay!

Revision

This morning Natalie had a CT scan on her head and then a follow-up appointment with the neurosurgeon.  He said the tumor that he removed from her back was benign.  He is concerned that her shunt isn't functioning as well as it should, though, so she is having surgery again on Thursday to replace it.  It was kind of short notice, but we want to go ahead and get it over with.  It should take about an hour or so and she'll be out on Friday as long as everything goes well.

Day After Surgery

Natalie's surgery went great.  She lost very little blood when they removed the teratoma and they were able to release her spinal cord and examine the cysts.  He thinks the cysts are benign and the teratoma was sent off to pathology.  While she was sedated he also tapped her shunt and confirmed that it is working and drained the area under her skin where some fluid was building up and wrapped her head in an effort to get the skin to heal back down.

I stayed at the hospital until 7:45 last night.  They ran her blood after surgery and her hemoglobin levels were low, so they gave her some blood to raise those levels before they took her breathing tube out.  She was stable last night when I called, but had thrown up after they tried feeding her.  She is moving her legs and toes which confirms that they didn't damage any nerves during surgery.

They said she'd be out Saturday at the very earliest, but I'm still going to plan on Monday just so I'm not disappointed if it isn't earlier.

As for the house, the same couple who had a showing on Wednesday went back yesterday for another showing.  Word is they LOVE the house, but they still haven't placed an offer yet, so we'll see.

Day Before Surgery

Natalie's next surgery is tomorrow morning.  I have to have her at the hospital at 5:30 am.  I came down here Monday night with Natalie while Ben and Lauren stayed at the house to get it finished for showings.  On Tuesday I met with the Neurosurgeon for our pre-op appointment, then I filled out the pre-admit paperwork and then went to pre-anesthesia to fill out more paperwork.  Before I could see the anesthesiologist, it was time to go to Natalie's  ophthalmology appointment.  That took almost two hours, and by the time we finished, everything was closing for the day.  We went back this morning to finish at pre-anesthesia and then have blood drawn at the lab.  Or not.  They stuck her three times at the lab and couldn't get a vein, so they sent us up to the PICU to see if they could get her.  She was stuck a total of SIX times before they got the blood she needed.  She was really not happy, and I felt quite sick by the time it was over.  I did see the same nurse she had last time, and she was very excited to find out Natalie would be there with her this weekend.

The eye doctor thinks Natalie is far-sighted and has a stigmatism.  She also has one eye that looks like it may be starting to be a lazy-eye.  He wants to see her again in April after he has a chance to look at her MRIs and CT scans and he'll see if she has any changes from this visit.  She may get glasses to see if seeing better will help strengthen her eye muscles.

Ben and Lauren are on their way down to San Antonio right now.  Ben has been working his butt off to get the house ready for showings since we'll be gone all weekend.  We had our first showing today at 4:30 and Ben said he used every last minute to finish up and get packed.  I guess he was pulling away just as the realtor showed up to the house.  I'm very much looking forward to any feedback we get.  While we're gone, the realtor is going to go in and set up the 360 degree virtual tour of the house to post to her website.  

For Sale

We put the house on the market as of yesterday. We've been cleaning and packing like crazy over the past two days. Ben rented a storage unit and we have packed up a few car loads to put away until we get to Washington. We also went through and gave away a bunch of small kitchen electrics to Goodwill. The house looks SO EMPTY now! I got some good pictures of most of the rooms and sent them to our realtor to put up on our listing. It's pretty liberating to be rid of so much stuff. There is still a lot we have to get done, though. We need to get the play room under control, hopefully I can get a box or two of toys to the storage unit without Lauren noticing. We have to get everything done by Monday because we leave Monday night for San Antonio for Natalie's next surgery. Hopefully the house will be shown every day while we're gone.

Natalie's pre-op appointment is Tuesday morning and she also has her follow up with Opthamology that afternoon. We'll have nothing to do on Wednesday and then her surgery should be first thing Thursday morning. She's having the teratoma on the base of her spine removed and if she doesn't lose too much blood he is going to cut the fiber that is tethering her spinal cord and also remove some cysts at the base of her spinal cord. There's a chance he'll have to stop after removing the teratoma and we'll have to do the other surgery later.