Sadbh was a little restless throughout the night, but slept right through until 6am.
This worked out great as her final feeding before surgery was 6:30am. As soon as Sadbh was awake, Katie fed her and then it was back to sleep until 7:30.
This was a trickier wake up since she is usually a lot hungrier after her second wake up.
We had our work cut out for us trying to keep her occupied and distracted from wanting to eat. She was allowed water until 8:30, and this seemed to do the trick.
Just before we headed off to the hospital, Sadbh got a chance to Skype with Granddad and Nana in Cork. She got so excited when she saw Granddad on the computer. She could not stop smiling. It certainly helped keep her mind off of food.
She was in an excellent mood all morning and it continued when we arrived at the hospital. She was full of smiles for all the staff and did not fuss once. It was amazing how good she was, considering that she had not eaten in over 3 hours.
It was almost like she knew what to do. When the nurse was taking her blood pressure, she held out her arm and waited as if she did this on a regular basis.
We met with the anesthesiologist team and went over all the details on putting Sadbh under.
Afterwards, we met with Dr. Inglis to go over the procedure. He started off by playing peek-a-boo with Sadbh, he’s quite the character.
Katie was invited to accompany Sadbh into the theater and to comfort her until they put her under. This seemed to work well in keeping Sadbh nice and content until she was under anesthetic.
Approximately 50 minutes had passed when our pager went off, letting us know that surgery was over and that we were to meet with Dr. Inglis.
As you could imagine, we were both very nervous throughout the whole morning, and the wait seemed to drag on for ages.
Dr. Inglis arrived in the consulting room, and had a very happy smile on his face.
The procedure went really well and he succeeded in removing a medium sized granuloma from the inside of her stoma, right above the trach. Looking at the image on the top right hand corner of this photo, you can see the granuloma, and where Dr. Inglis has removed it by laser in the image below.
He then checked her vocal cords and observed that they were still shutting closed. He believes that they close tight, even when they are supposed to be opening.
With that, he injected Botox into the muscles that cause the vocal cords to close.
The hope is that they should start to open within a week, and if that works, we will be able to start work on her speech development.
He wants us to come back in a month so he can check on the progress.
We then headed back to the recovery room and waited for our princess to arrive. Eventually she was brought into our room, and she looked pale and really weak. Katie instantly noticed that her trach ties were very loose and not secure. Her trach was almost coming out of her neck.
Katie did a great job of holding Sadbh and keeping her calm, and I managed to get the ties secured.
Our nurse called Dr. Inglis to let him know that there was an issue, and he came right down to check in with us. He was very apologetic and reassured us that he was going to follow up with his team.
By now, Sadbh was fast asleep and she started to get some color back.
Her heart rate was a lot higher than normal, but she slept sound for ages. Unfortunately she needed a lot of suctioning and had the occasional coughing fit.
Eventually, she woke up and it was time for a feed. Once fed, she was back to sleep.
Our nurse was after completing our discharge papers and once Sadbh’s IV was removed, we were off out the door and homebound.
Not long after arriving home, Sadbh started a coughing fit and ended up barfing up all her food.
After cleaning Sadbh up, she got to Skype with my parents again back in Cork for almost an hour.
Afterwards, Katie fed Sadbh again and she kept it down. A bit later, we tried to give her a bit of apple & oatmeal. While Sadbh was eating, she received a call from Katie’s brother and his family in Singapore. Unfortunately she ended up getting sick again, so we had to end the call to take care of her.
It did not take long to clean her up, and we called Karby back. Karby chatted to Sadbh over the speakerphone and she was full of smiles. She even got to hear her nieces Liberty, Belle Rose and Trinity tell her that they love her.
She definitely had an off day after the surgery, but considering everything that she had been through, she is such an amazing child. Katie and I were so surprised how calm and relaxed she was prior to her surgery, and how good she was afterwards.
She is a great kid and has certainly taught us a few lessons in life. We are so proud of her.
Thank you all for the well wishes, prayers and positive thoughts today.
Wayne, Katie and Princess Sadbh.
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