She is just so happy

I think these pics just sum it up beautifully:





She has literally been glowing since yesterday - even the doctors and nurses noticed. I've noticed a big change in her too - if its possible, her face has changed since the operation. It seems to be more delicate and more "put together", for lack of better wording. Is it possible for her to feel that a massive change has occurred and its just radiating from her every pore? I think she is truly happy beyond compare, and I think its all her (I don't believe we are putting our emotions on her here). Remember this is two days post-op!

She slept relatively well, except for a bit of pain at 11 pm last night. She woke up with a smile and has spent the day staying quiet and watching her favorite movies - Doodlebops and Mickey Mouse. I've got her on organic baby food till next week when she has her post-op appointment - she lost a lot of blood and her hemoglobin levels were very low, so we need to pump her up with the best of the best. She is much harder to understand now that everything is swollen up, but she is now saying nice "b" and "p"! Otherwise, she is doing just great!

P.S. Those pics were taken last night, while watching Ni Hao Kai-Lan! Believe it or not, we had just gotten home from the hospital, and I asked her what she wanted to do. She asked to watch Tree House, so I put her on the couch and turned on the TV. Max and Ruby was just finishing (THANK DOG!... I can't stand Ruby), and sort of turned my back to go and do something else. Then all of a sudden, I hear the theme song to Kai-Lan and I about dropped to the floor... I thought we had missed the premiere on Tuesday. Talk about timing! They all really enjoyed it, and Kaitlynn got up and danced with her brothers, and kept saying "Ni Hao!"

Got the call...

Just talked to Stef... Kaitlynn can come home! I'm just waiting for our nanny to come to watch the boys and then I'm off to go get them.

They should be home by 7 or 8pm tonight at the latest.

Greg

A system on the breaking point

If you are a looking for a feel good post, you've unfortunately not got me on my best day. Kaitlynn is fine and getting better - she threw a massive temper tantrum this morning because she wanted Daddy to hold her and he wasn't doing it fast enough for her liking. That to me is an indication of a child who is getting better.

First off, keep in mind I have had about 1 hour of sleep since Monday night... and boy am I cranky now. I love the Children's staff - they are a great bunch of people that should be given medals for what they have to deal with on a daily basis. But OMG what is happening to our health care system is just jaw-dropping. Case in point, Kaitlynn is in recovery and there are 2... yes, I said 2... nurses on duty, and the kids keep coming in back to back. The head nurse could not hide her eyes and the sheer shock of what was happening to her and to her colleague. She called out to someone that the OR had to be closed, and it had to be closed now as she and her colleague could not continue at this crazy pace! She felt aweful doing it it, but she couldn't continue to do her job properly... and anyone who was in that room could have seen it in an instant. I don't blame her one bit and I completely agree with her - it was just nuts, watching bed after bed get wheeled in, and every single child needing a nurse immediately to respond to his or her needs. To add to the lovely picture I have drawn, we were the only parents in the recovery room! Some kids came in, parents were called, they came, took a look at their child and turned around and LEFT! WHAT?? We saw this happen a few times, and I just couldn't believe it. One poor kid's parents couldn't be located.. he was SCREAMING in absolute terror. The colleague nurse had to hold him down until an orderly could find his parents before he ripped all his IV's out. So at one point there was the head nurse dealing with everything coming in. NUTS!

The other beautiful story I have is Kaitlynn needed to have blood work done ASAP this morning cause she bled a lot yesterday. Usually, a tech comes in and does the blood work right? Nope, not anymore. If you miss the rotation, you have to get your child downstairs to the blood clinic and wait in line for them to draw some blood... did I mention that our daughter just had surgery and really shouldn't be exposed to other people who have colds and flu's and such? K's nurse told me to go downstairs, and avoid large crowds and to get the blood drawn and results back STAT... if there were too many people, I was to come back upstairs. WHAT???

Now, the icing on the cake for me is the actual parents/family members/relatives that are supposed to be visiting their children.... but I think I should leave that for another day, as the screen is bouncing in front of my eyes.

Long Day at the Hospital

They say there is a first time for everything, but apparently there is also a second - namely Papa blogging while Mama stays with Kaitlynn.

First, for those too eager to hear the whole story of the day, the long and the short of it is the surgery went well. Kaitlynn is in a bit of pain, but they seem to be managing it well.

The day started off early, we were out of the house a little later than we wanted, at 6:15, as we were supposed to be a the hospital no later than 7am. If we hit traffic anywhere, we would be screwed. But someone was looking over our shoulder because it was clear sailing all the way through and we even had 5 min to spare by the time we were parked at the Children's.

Now, I know the old saying "don't do drugs" but anyone who has ever seen a 2 and 1/2 year old on sedatives knows that it's a pretty funny thing. :) In order to make sure Kaitlynn wasn't too stressed going into the operating room, they gave her that same sedative to calm her down, and it just turned her loopy. At one point, while I was holding her with her chin on my shoulder, she just tilted her head, looked at me, and then just started giggling uncontrollably. Don't know what she saw, but it apparently was hilarious. :)

Surgery lasted about 3 hours total, and she spent about two hours in recovery because the nurse there was a little concerned about her high heart rate and the fact that she was still bleeding a little bit from her mouth and nose. A surgeon came to look, finally, and said there was no major bleeding, and it turns out her heart rate had been a bit elevated even during surgery so they just think her baseline is higher than normal. So, in the end we were headed off to the ward.

She spent most of the afternoon in and out of naps, but slept for a good hour or two near the end of the afternoon. She was experiencing some pain at times, and in one case it seemed to come out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly. But the pain is being managed and when I left at about 7pm, she was quite intently watching Cars and seemed to be in a good place.

Momma has the first night shift. I'm going to head back to the hospital tomorrow with the intent of spending the night. If all goes well, we hope to have Kaitlynn home by Thursday sometime. Generally they like to give 48 hrs of antibiotics (3 doses over 24 hrs in the IV, then 3 more doses over 24 hours orally) - they started at 5pm today, so the last dose should be Thurs morning. That's a likely time for her to come home, but not certain. We'll know more as we get closer to Thursday.

Thanks to everyone who've been thinking about us. It's good to know that so many people care.

Well, it's late, and Papa needs his rest for tomorrow. I'm sure Stef will have more to say when she gets home (and can correct all those details I've mis-remembered :).

Greg

Tomorrow is the big day!

We are as ready as we can be, for our early morning departure to the hospital. Kaitlynn's surgery is first at 7:45 am, and I figure we will leave at about 6ish to get downtown. I say we cause DH is coming too - Tristan had enough sense to ask Grammy Carol to come and help out for a few days! So in spite of her beloved doggie being injured (and on the mend, she assures me), she should be arriving sometime after dinner tonight. The first question out of the boys mouths when they came home from school is "Has Grammy Carol arrived yet?", to which I answered no, not yet... but soon. It seems that they put a special request in for Grammy Carol to bring Timmie's donut holes...

We've had a few conversations with Kaitlynn to get her ready for tomorrow. I don't think she quite gets it yet, but she understands that her "bo-bo" in her mouth will be fixed tomorrow and that Maman will be there when she wakes up. I used "bo-bo" with her cause she sometimes gets food stuck in the cleft, by the gum line, and she will point to it and say "bo-bo"... to which I respond to and fix. I am hoping that she understands that this "bo-bo" will no longer happen - and not that her cleft is the bo-bo... a very important subtlety for me, as I don't want her to think that I think the cleft itself is a wound. We moved Jacob out of their room for the week, so that when she comes home in 3 or 4 days she can sleep soundly and long without Jacob getting up and turning on the the lights at 5:45 am! She kind of understands, but is still sad that her Jacob isn't with her in the morning.

We will be in the Children's Hospital, C-738 is the general area where the nurses can guide anyone who wants to come by and see us. I will be there with the K Tuesday and Wednesday, and DH will take over sleeping duties on Wednesday evening (in case I don't get any sleep on Tuesday night!). Hopefully, we will be home Thursday or Friday at the latest. There is no phone in the room and the nurses have asked that no one call unless its really urgent. If anyone is in the general area, please come up for a visit.

Please keep Kaitlynn in your prayers and thoughts over the next couple of days.

1, 2, 3, 4... yup, were good

Ok, first off, we still have 4 kids... that's the good news. Bad news... well... I don't know how long that is going to last! Oh man, why do they do this (get really bad) when I am alone with them? They know I am outnumbered, me thinks.

Now, we survived this morning cause I canceled the ped's appointment - just too much craziness. (The kids all made it to school and daycare on time). We got to the hospital, with time to spare and met some wonderful people who will be our "family" next week. Kaitlynn was a real good girl and let everyone look inside her mouth and ears, and tickle her tummy and take her blood pressure without complaining one bit. The staff were quite taken with her, and kept raving at how good she was. We got a tour of the ward, and then headed home at about 11:30 am when everything was done. Good news is that her surgery is the first one of the day at 7:45 am, bad news is I have to be there with her for 7 am, fasting completely since 5 am. The surgery will take "a good 2 hrs", according to the assistant to the plastic surgeon, which I interpret to mean it will be longer. He explained that Dr. Williams will decide on the spot what is best for the palate repair, and then he went on to describe the most common repair (take grafts from either side of the cleft, put it in the middle, and then attach the muscles together from the back to the front - this is my interpretation of what he said, so its very simplified down). She may loose a tooth in the process, as there is one right inside the cleft, but they will try to save it. She will be on a soft diet for 2 weeks, and hopefully during that time she won't get a fistula (a tear in the incision) which means another surgery most likely. She will be at risk for sleep apnea for 2-3 days afterwards, as everything will be swollen, but she will be on a monitor for the whole time. Pain medication will be the old tylenol and codeine mix.

Now, time to run and put some youngster to bed - I needed a few minutes to myself, so I am hiding downstairs! Oh dang... they found me...

Coming together

I haven't dropped off the face of the earth yet, I'm still here. It has been another crazy week, most notably we got "The Call" for Kaitlynn's surgery. They offered us one of two dates: Feb 22 or Feb 26. Go ahead, go look at your calender... back yet... yup, that's right, next week! Oh, did I mention that DH is out of town all next week? No... guess when he gets back? Go ahead... I'm sure you can figure it out, seeing as everything we do seems to come to the same point in time, even though they are mutually exclusive events. Yup, Feb 22... at night. So forget Feb 22. We agreed to Feb 26, which unfortunately means that DH needs to take 3 full days off work to look after the kids, while I am at the hospital with the K. Oh, did I mention that DH only has 4 days of holiday left? And the week after K's surgery is spring break for the kids... me, 4 kids, alone... for one week... with one kid recovering from surgery. Niiiiiiiiiice.

The fun doesn't stop there. I realized that K's vaccination appointment was the 29th, so desperately call the ped's to move up the appointment to make sure she is properly vaccinated before she goes into the hospital. They gave me Feb 20th, at 8:45 am. Ok, I can do that, the school bus comes at 8:04, walk Tristan to school by 8:15, in the car and ... oh, shoot, forgot, I am alone... means Jacob has to come along for the fun. Oh, that's all right we'll manage just fine - we will just make sure he is in another room while his sister gets 4 different limbs punctured (we want to make sure that Jacob doesn't go after the doctor, don't we?). DH calls the hospital to find out about the pre-op appointment. When is it? Yup, you guessed it, Feb 20th at 10 am... only day they do pre-op appointments. All right then, get to Taschereau by 8:45 am, hopefully get out out no later than 9:30 am, and boot it downtown for 10 am (praying that the bridges are clear and that there is no snow storm that day). Did I mention I have Jacob along for the fun? Should just be a hoot!

So, back to my original question: why does everything have to happen all at the same time?

So get this...

After two visits to the pediatrician, one visit to the clinic, then a rush to the Children's hospital to see the surgeon, we finally get confirmation that Tristan's foot is fine - whatever we have been doing, with the soaking and the oral and topical antibiotics has worked to clear up the infection. So no surgery finally! Can you believe this?! At least our ped's admitted that she just didn't know but she didn't want to take any chances. Now we wait the 7 more days of treatment and then we go see a dermatologist (anyone know of any good ones on the South Shore?) to make sure that the damn wart that started this whole story is gone. Oh, and Tristan and DH got fast tracked at the hospital for some reason, so almost no wait time and no triage - they were in and out in about 2 hrs.

When I get up enough nerve, I'll take a picture of his heel and post it... so you can all go "UGGHHHHH.... that's disgusting!" (Which btw is Tristan's favorite line now "Maman, c'est disgusting"). You know... I should have finished my studies in pre-med and become a pediatrician... it would have saved a lot of heart ache this week!

Update on Tristan

He is at the Children's Hospital now with DH... he has to have his heel cleaned up by a surgeon, even though we have been taking very good care of his foot and it looks a bit better (more white than red now), but there is a lot of dead skin to remove. More later... did I say Joy...

Well, there you go

Happy Year of the rat to everyone!

I didn't post anything right way, cause things were a bit murky. Now that I have spoken to the audiologist, I can speak more intelligently about Kaitlynn's ENT appointment yesterday. (I should mention that yesterday was a day from ... well you know... Jacob had a fever and a terrible cough, Tristan's wart is infected and needs immediate attention, Kaitlynn needed to go to Children's in the morning... and all this with 1 car - we pulled it off, but Dh had to take the day off to make it so). Kaitlynn's audiology test was not what I expected - she has no movement in her tympanic membrane and she has problems hearing in the high frequency range. Normal hearing is rated between 0-20 dB, whereas Kaitlynn is at 40 dB. To give you an idea, go underwater and try to listen to someone speaking to you... that is what she hears. (As a reference point, Tristan has 20 dB is his right ear, and 35 dB in his left). Needless to say, I was shocked given that she is speaking so much... I've lost count on how many words she knows. Tristan at this age and with his hearing wasn't speaking at all! So what happens now you ask? She will have tubes installed when they repair the cleft. She will then be tested 2 weeks later to see what she is hearing. She will probably have to have the tube surgery a few times, as they tend to drop out every 6 months or so. (BTW, this is quite common with clefts). Joy....

Tristan's foot is very, very, very infected. He is at home for the next two days so I can keep cleaning it and putting cream on it, and giving him his antibiotics like clockwork, and to make sure he doesn't walk on it too much. If its not better by tomorrow, we are off to the Children's so that he can have surgery to clean it up. Joy...

Jacob had a terrible fever on Tuesday night, with a horrible cough. Not usually bad, except for his preemie lungs which are always a worry to me. We started him on the pumps, but they take 48 hrs to take effect. So he came to bed with me, and watched the news for a bit until the meds took effect on his fever. While watching the news, a couple of women on the news clip walked by dressed in heejabs. Jacob, better known as Munch, pipes up with "Is that Irak?".... ummmm.... no, its not... "Oh Good, cause I don't like Irak.".... ummm why honey? "Because there is war there and its not a good place to be right now". ohhhhhhh..... Now, I ask you how does he know about Irak? How does he know anything about heejabs? HE'S THREE (barely)! We have no idea how he has processed this information - we watched the news in English, he only speaks French. He had a fever, was red as a tomato and he is talking to me about Irak! Oh my, are we in trouble.... Joy....

Someone is growing

For about 1 week now I had been noticing small changes in Kaitlynn. For instance, I remarked to Greg that her diapers didn't seem to be so tight anymore. Then I noticed that it was getting harder to put her in her one piece snowsuit. Yesterday, our part time nanny extraordinaire, Christiane, says that she thinks Kaitlynn has grown. This morning I am staring at her, going "I think she has grown... she looks leaner somehow." So I measured her this morning, and lo and behold she has grown almost 1 inch in 15 days! Oh my goodness... here comes the growth spurt! Here are some pics I took this morning: (oh, and the band-aids on her face? What does a 2 1/2 yr old do when she has eczema on her face?... you got it, scratches and gets the bo-bos infected)




We also went on a playdate with Tao Tao and Leanne and Gretchen last week. Here are some pics of the fun!

No traffic, no slowdown on the Jacques Cartier bridge, find a parking spot right in front of Leanne's when the snow clearing is coming through on the other side other street... result is you arrive 30 minutes earlier than you thought you would, and you get to watch Leanne and crew head out for a much needed doggie walkies! It was funny watching them head out to the park, while Kaitlynn slept soundly in the back (she always falls asleep in the car).

The Gretchen... banished to the front hall.

The kids ready for lunch. I tell you these two are related somehow, somewhere!
That would be Kaitlynn in the pink... in case you couldn't tell.