The beginning of this week has been pretty scary, that is for sure, but thankfully things are turning around for everyone! Macie had surgery yesterday morning to replace her ear tubes and remove her adnoids. We had tubes done last summer, so I was prepared for everything and went in completely optimistic. Dr. Wellendorf, the ENT and surgeon is absolutely wonderful and has a great way of explaining what is going on and keeping a person calm.
We got to the hospital in Storm Lake at 7 am (which was way too early for both Mommy and Macie.), and we checked in and waited in the surgery area for Dr. Wellendorf to arrive. Macie was very patient and quietly played with the new stuffed duck from the Buena Vista hospital, and some of the hospital's toys. Around 8, the nurses were checking all vitals, and explaining the procedure to us, and about 8:15 or so, she headed back with a new stuffed kitty from Dr. Wellendorf. (yes she got two new toys!!) I settled in the rocking chair in recovery, jamming out to my iPod and waiting to hear how she was. Dr. Wellendorf came back about a quarter to nine or so and told me that she was out of surgery, everything was fine, and they were starting to wake her up. This means that she had probably 1/2 hour back there to wake up and get oriented, and then they would bring her to me to have something to drink and make sure everything was great to go home.
Shortly after 9, two nurses came back into the room carrying Macie, and she was making the most terrifying noises I have ever heard. They told me that there was a complication when they removed the breathing tube and her throat was closing up, and she was fighting to breathe. They had given her one respirtory treatment, but it hadn't done anything, and they wanted me to hold her to try and calm her down so they could try again. They repeated the same treatment (albuteral or something like that?), and after no results, they gave her a different respirtory treatment (racemic epi ... again, i don't know if that's the correct term or spelling) at 10:10 am. After a few minutes, the treatment started to kick in and her breathing returned to normal around 10:30. They wanted to keep us there for a while to monitor her vitals, and her blood-oxygen level kept dropping to the 80%'s. They were talking about keeping us over night for monitoring, but after about an hour and a half, she was able to keep in up in the 90%'s, so we were able to leave and go home at 1:30pm.
I don't think that I will ever forget the sounds that she was making when they brought her in, and I have never been as scared as I was when they brought her back to me. But thank God, things turned around quickly and she is doing much better. The nurses at BV RMC were wonderful, and helped a lot to keep me calm and re-assure me that everything would be alright. Macie made friends with several of them. On the car ride home, she fell asleep, and slept until 4:30. When she woke up, she acted like her normal self, you never would have known that she had any procedure, let alone that there had been a problem with it. We are definitely a very lucky family!
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