For those who have never done the surgery with a kid thing, what normally happens is that you are back in this room and a parade of people come through. The nurses take his full health history and then the surgeon comes in as well as the anesthesiologist. Since Children's is a teaching hospital, we had all of those people plus the respective fellows in each of those areas. We told everyone that came in about how poorly Finn has woken up from anesthesia before. We described how he wakes very suddenly and is very angry and has pulled out his lines in the past. Anyone that would listen, we told. I'm grateful that the anesthesiology fellow took me very seriously and their team worked together to come up with anything they could think of to make this experience different. Finn was very nervous and upset about the whole thing and so they brought in a dose of Versed (an anti-anxiety) for him but said that if it was too hard to get it in him to not worry. Well, we took the iPad and Reid promised Finn something new to see if he would take his "giggle juice". The nurses were very impressed as the medicine went right in and then Finn went right back to his iPad. We got a lot of compliments, I guess on our ability to manipulate our child. We know what works! Anyway, getting that Versed was awesome. We then had a child life specialist come in and give Finn a stuffed sheep with a g-tube (his new g-tube buddy), which Finn later named Lightning. The child life specialist also let Finn practice smelling the flavor of his choice in the anesthesia mask. What seems like such a small thing turned out to be fantastic for him. He chose Skittles flavor and then Reid, Finn, and I took turns smelling the mask. When it was time to go back to the OR I gowned up and went with Finn. He was starting to seem a bit tired by this point (from the Versed) but he still didn't want to lay down on the table. The anesthesiology team allowed him to sit up while resting against the main fellow and he played Lego Star Wars on the iPad while breathing through the sleepy mask right up until he fell asleep. At that point we laid him down and I kissed him goodbye and went back out to the waiting room with Reid.
The surgery went well and relatively quickly (about an hour I think). Then they came back to get us before Finn woke up. Normally they don't allow this as the kids are still in the "danger zone" but because of our past experiences they brought us back to be there when he first woke up. They told us that they gave him everything they could to help this go better. And thankfully, it worked! Finn didn't startle awake. In fact, he woke up for a second, sat up, and then fell right back to sleep. After an hour we decided to rub a cold wash cloth on his face to wake him up. Such a different experience than the past! He woke up groggy but pleasant. And then we were taken up to his room (room 902) which is where we stayed for the next two nights.
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| Texting pictures to Kai and Bree while they were at Sister Horton's house |
Since it was New Year's Eve we were bombarded as soon as we hit the floor. The home health care company was waiting in our room for us to give us the training on using the equipment (pump, tubes, etc). And then there was a nearly one hour training video that the nurse wanted us to watch. Reid watched that in a separate room before he left for the night to go get the other kids. I watched the video the next day as well as had training on changing the dressing, cleaning the tube site, and did trial runs of night feedings. We kept Finn on a pain medication schedule and he was pleasant and good the whole time. I was really, really proud of him. I was also very thankful for the sweet older gentleman volunteer who came in on New Year's Day to run the book cart to all of the kids. Finn got several new books to keep (since he was in isolation he couldn't give them back because of germs, etc.) and some crayons for a coloring book. We also had this fantastic nurse named Amy. In the course of chatting I found out she was from Arizona and did gymnastics as a kid. I mentioned I was a gymnast, too, and then she saw my BYU sweatshirt and asked if I had been a BYU gymnast. Then she started asking me if I knew some people and it turns out that she knew about a half dozen of my BYU teammates (the Arizona girls). She had been their teammate in high school. It was so fun! What a small world!
New Year's day was pretty slow for us. Finn played a lot of iPad and we watched TV and the Lego Movie. Finn also got a new Paw Patrol board game from Kai which we played together as well. We read books and colored and just sat there waiting for the day to pass. He wasn't doing IVs or anything so really he wasn't attached to any wires, just sitting in his bed waiting for night to come so we could do another night feed. It was quiet in the hospital because of the holiday and the day seemed long. We Facetimed with Reid and Bree at one point which was nice, until Bree started to cry when she had to say goodbye. That was hard.
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| Bree playing with daddy who texted us this picture |
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| Playing Paw Patrol with mommy |
Our only bumps during our stay was when a fellow decided to tell our nurse and the RT that Finn "had" to try the vest before he went home. Our CF doctor has specifically told me the day before that we could take a week off of vest treatments and replace it with acapella treatments (a different airway clearance device that involves blowing into a tube that vibrates your lungs from the inside). But when the doctors are away for the holidays the fellows are in charge. I hesitated at first and then decided to ask the nurse to send the fellow in so I could talk to her about it. She got pretty defensive about it when the conversation first started, but eventually she understood that I wasn't trying to be mean or aggressive, I just didn't agree. We came to an amicable conclusion and she went on her way. Finn didn't have to do his vest.....thank goodness! The second bump came our last night there when we were to run his first full night feed. The dietician had orders for an 8 hour feed with enzyme doses at the start and end. Well, Finn sleeps 10-11 hours a night and he was tired from not sleeping well in the hospital. We were going to start the feed at 10pm, but the nurse didn't come in until 11:15pm and Finn was sound asleep. We tried to wake him up to take his enzymes but he didn't want to (go figure, who wants to "eat" when they are sleeping) and put up a pretty big fight. I eventually told the nurse it wasn't going to happen and so she went out to give the doctor a call. The doctor told her to run the feed anyway without the enzymes (he had to tolerate the feed that night if we wanted to go home the next day) so we did. He did take his enzymes in the morning when the feed was done, but that is much easier when you are awake. Because of that incident we changed his feeding schedule to a 10 hour feed. Much easier for all of us!
After 2 nights in the hospital we were ready to go home. I had our stuff packed and ready to roll before the hospital could get everything together. The home health care company was the one piece of the puzzle that slowed us down the most because we needed a delivery of pumps, tape, gauze, IV pole, feeding bags, formula, etc. The delivery man pulled up to the parking lot right as I was pulling out. We met in the parking lot and got our stuff right in the car and then went on our way. We were happy to be heading home and to be done with our stay. That being said, about a week ago Finn said, "I wish I could go back to the hospital. It was fun!" Ummmm.....ok. I am grateful to the anesthesia team who made our stay that much fun. Seriously, our best stay ever!
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| Hiding near the clothes hamper in the hospital ready to go home. |
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| All loaded in the wagon ready to go, just waiting on home health care |
