Surgery

After anticipating a rather stressful day on Friday, I was pleasantly surprised to find it to be rather smooth sailing. The hardest part was waking up so darn early. 5:00 a.m. found me extremely tired and unrested, but nonetheless we were up at out the door at 5:30 to be at Primary Children's for check-in at 6:00. My worries that Zoe would want to eat were unfounded as she was still too tired to figure out what was going on. Andrew had to leave for motor school (yes, he's still alive and well...knock on wood), and I was left to do all the pre-surgery prep.

Here's little Zo in her hospital pajamas with her trusty thumb and lovey blanket.The before shot of her 'lump'.
Her ID tag made for a fun toy...
I waited in the parent waiting room for a little over an hour after talking with the surgeon and anesthesiologist. The time actually went by quite quickly. The surgeon came in to tell me it was over and she was doing well. The big surprise was that the lump ended up not being a hemangioma as was assumed but rather some fatty mass which was sent to pathology for further testing. We'll get those results in a week or so. The surgeon said he'd be interested to find out what it was (I guess that makes two of us).

From there I got to go into recovery where Zoe had just come out of the anesthetic. She was not a happy camper. She was still very much out of it and was flailing and screaming in attempts to get her IV out. They took it out despite the fact that it was supplying her with liquids and pain meds. She was able to calm down a lot more after that. I still had to rock her and try to get her to go back to sleep as she was very glassy-eyed and not herself still. We had a quiet hour or so where she was in and out of sleep. Finally, after a good 25 minutes of straight sleep, she woke to be very much more herself.

However, in order to be released she had to keep down some kind of liquid which, up to this point, she refused to drink. They initially tried a bottle before I got there, but I explained she never would take a bottle and they'd have to try a sippy. She didn't want either for a while. Then, after her little nap and another denial of the sippy, I gave her the bottle to play with. Lo and behold, she put it in her mouth and guzzled it. So she was given another bottle which she downed as well. I was extremely surprised. I guess comfort can come in unique ways during unique times.

Here she is with her bottle waiting to be given the okay to be released Her vitals were good and the juice stayed down, so we were free to go home--three hours after the start of the surgery.

Now she has a little purple souvenir and a long line of stitches the width of her foot. Surprisingly, she is acting so normal...she came home to find Lily and Grandma Allred and was all over the place wanting to play. She was walking on it, standing, crawling...it wasn't going to stop her. I guess when you're used to a gimp foot, it doesn't matter what hinderance is there. Luckily the doctor said that it's pretty low risk for complications even with her being pretty mobile. it's bandaged pretty tight and should do just fine. I mean, after all, how do you keep a 14 month old still for a few days? The answer is....you don't.

Thanks for all your prayers, concern and support for Zoe at this time. She is doing great, and we're so grateful that it was a minor thing which was somewhat easily fixed. There were plenty of other little kids and babies being treated the same day for things much more major, and I was full of gratitude for the blessings of health and strength which my little family has been given.