Day 3: Post Op

So after our rough evening, they definitely upped Ava's meds and she was resting comfortably.  She asked for Aunt Amber to stay overnight with her, so Ryan and I went to the hotel to get some sleep in a real bed.  (I had two much-needed apple martinis at the bar before going to the room!)  She was already tucked in and sleeping when we left. Unfortunately, the night nurse had to come in more often than I had wanted, so I am not sure she really got a 'good' night's sleep.  She woke up really groggy and continued to doze in and out from 6-7:30am and then slept completely for about an hour until Ryan and I arrived at the hospital (with Donuts for the nurses station and a few for Amber & Ava). Unfortunately, she was still pretty out of it and didn't even want the chocolate sprinkle donut that is usually her favorite. I could tell she wasn't feeling well immediately.

Most of the morning, she was lethargic and not her normal self.  She complained of an upset stomach and we thought it might just be that her bowels are moving, but she hasn't had an actual movement since Tuesday when we were still at home.  A side effect of the medication she's getting is constipation, so it isn't a surprise that we are seeing some symptoms of that.  But because she has a strong epidural, she can't go to the bathroom anyway - can't physically get there and can't even really control or feel her bowels at all.  She ended up getting sick and throwing up a bit so they gave her Zofran immediately to get that under control.

Then, it was time for our first pin care lesson where they take all the sponges off of all the pins and clean around them.  That was the worst thing we've done yet.  We thought that since her epidural was still really strong, she wouldn't be quite as anxious about it. But we were wrong.  She pretty much cried and yelled in pain through the whole procedure.  So, there wasn't much 'teaching' that the nurses did because they were trying to hurry through the process and we were trying to keep Ava calm and not coming off the bed while they cleaned around the pin sites.  I didn't take any pictures - and I'm not sure anyone would want to see them anyway.  It was just as freaky as I thought it would be to see metal rods sticking into my baby's skin and the seeping bloody tissue around them.  And to watch them scrub the dried blood and guck off with q-tips while she screamed. Ugh.  Because they packed those sponges on during surgery (2 days ago) the ones closest to the skin were stuck on in places and even though they wet them, they still had to peel them off in places.  Hearing her scream out in pain (perceived or real) was horrible.  Amber thinks that she's not really feeling the level of pain that it sounds like she's feeling - but that she's anticipating and freaking out because she THINKS it hurts because is LOOKS awful.  Kinda like we cringe at the surgery channel or guys do when they watch somebody kicked in the groin.  ;)  It's small comfort to me that she may not really be in that much pain, but it's frustrating that I don't know how to help her not flip out and feel like she's in excruciating pain.  She even said, through tears, "I'm trying to be brave, Mommy!"

All of that happened before 10:30am, so it was not a good start to the day - at least for my nerves. Then, a dr. from anesthesia came in to assess her epidural.  He said that he thought she was really tired and groggy today due to the meds being turned up the night before, so he thought it was a good idea to turn the epi back down so that she could fully participate in PT.

It wasn't long before she felt enough better to have part of the donut and then the physical therapist and occupational therapist came in to get her out of bed and into the wheelchair.  She was VERY resistant to the idea of standing up, so they said they would just put her in the chair from the bed so that she could go play in the playroom and then we would do her exercises and standing after that.  She fussed quite a bit getting to the chair, but seemed happy to go to the playroom.  She wanted to paint a suncatcher for Olivia (her baby cousin) but only about 5 minutes into painting, she looked really sleepy and I caught her doing the long-blink more than once.  I asked if she wanted to go back to the room and finish later and she said yes immediately, which was not normal.  So we went back and got her comfortable in the chair and she slept for about an hour and a half just like this:

She really wanted to go back to finish her suncatcher when she woke up, didn't really want to each much of anything, and complained that her tummy was hurting again.  We wheeled her back down to the playroom, but she only lasted about 3 minutes and said she wanted to go back and get in bed.  But the therapist had already moved on to another patient, so she had to wait a bit.

When PT/OT came in, they wanted her to transfer to her feet, hold the walker and turn around to sit on the bed.  That did not go well.  :/

But - once she got on the bed, they told her she had to scoot up using her arms all the way to her pillow.  She said she couldn't, but guess what?  She did it all by herself in a little bit of no time!!!  We were very proud of her and I think she surprised herself.  

Once settled again, she got an ice cream treat and ended up using the top ring of the ex fix as her food tray.  Ha ha.  Probably not the last time!!

The highlight of her day was when someone knocked on the door and had a special delivery for her!  A beautiful balloon bouquet from Norfolk Academy Lower School arrived and she smiled bigger than I had seen her smile in about 24 hours!!!  Thank you so much to those responsible for sending a little cheer to this brave girl.  :)  She loved making the wings flutter on that big butterfly!

She hasn't really had much to eat today - didn't want dinner either.  We watched Frozen, which passed a little of the time and she colored pictures with Aunt Amber.  She started complaining of a headache around 4:30 or 5pm and by 6:45pm, she started feeling pain in her leg too.  So, we have just (7pm) given her some extra pain medication to try to take the edge off and allow her to sleep.  I think it'll be an early night - and we are going to have a stern chat with the night nurse as soon as we meet her.  I am going to insist that they not come in and check her vitals or anything overnight a bunch of times.  She needs to rest!!

Tonight is Ryan's night to stay in the hospital with her, so we'll see if he can match his "Papa Bear" to my "Mama Bear" - haha!