So remember I said that 2014 was a momentous year because it was the first year since birth that Miss Violet had no trips to the OR? Well we started 2015 off with a bang with what should have been a fairly straight-forward dental procedure under anesthesia. (Her poor mouth: she needs 7 cavities filled, a crown placed, and 2 extractions. And this was before x-rays, so possibly more work is actually necessary.) We completed her history and physical, completed her pre-admission testing appointment and pulled into Children's Mercy at 5:42 a.m. last Friday in preparation for her new and improved mouth! I love how pretty all of their Christmas lights still look. . .
We answered all of the necessary questions and took her vitals to make sure she was healthy enough for surgery, and then waited for them to take her back. They brought her some toys to play with, but my girl would much rather play with the phone. Here are some of her/our pre-op selfies:
Daddy's girl:
And some post-Versed snuggles with my cuddly girl.
They took her back to surgery a little before 8 and we found our places in the waiting room, preparing to get comfortable. As you can imagine, we were surprised when they called Violet's name just over 30 minutes later and told us she was "all done." Russ and I knew immediately something wasn't right, as this surgery should have taken at least 90 minutes. The dentist met us in the consultation room and said that unfortunately, Violet didn't do well with the intubation and no dental work was performed. She let us know that the anesthesiologist would be meeting with us to fill us in on the details of what exactly happened. Needless to say, we were very disappointed. We went back to the waiting room to wait. And wait. And wait. After an hour, I got a little impatient and asked when the anesthesiologist might be coming out. They called and said she still wasn't stable enough for him to leave her. That sure calmed my nerves! Another half hour passed and he finally came to talk to us. He said they made two attempts at intubation and her lungs did not like it. In his words, it was the "worst bronchospasm I've ever seen." And he has been at Children's Mercy for over 10 years. That sounds just like the Violet we all know and love, now doesn't it?? He said he actually considered transferring her to the PICU, but she wasn't stable enough so that's why he stayed with her that whole time. Violet is possibly the first child ever to almost end up in the PICU for a dental procedure that didn't even happen! He didn't have any good explanations for what happened, but recommended she be admitted to the hospital for a chest x-ray and pulmonology consult. We felt pretty uneasy heading back to the waiting room. I told Russ that this 10th trip to the OR for Violet would be her LAST if I have anything to say about it. We continued our waiting game for another hour and a half. This was possibly the most annoying and unnerving waiting we had ever done in this surgery waiting room. Knowing that your child didn't have the planned surgery and that she basically crashed on the operating table, and that you still can't see her after almost 4 hours is a terrible feeling. But FINALLY, they told us she was ready to head to her room.
She was none too happy with the morning's activities, either.
Although she did perk up a little when her lunch arrived. An Oreo shake can make almost any day better.
After fighting sleep all afternoon, she finally gave in to give her body some much-needed rest.
The chest x-ray was clear and the pulmonologist preferred to see her in clinic, so thankfully the pediatric team agreed to discharge us later that evening.
We drove back up to Children's Mercy this morning (3rd time in one week, starting to feel like old times) to meet with the pulmonologist. We went over all of her records and decided to start her on an asthma controller medication. He isn't convinced she has asthma, but wants us to try the Flovent for a couple of months to see if we can tell any difference (in her energy, sleep habits, coughing). He said she may have "intermittent" asthma that gets triggered by viral infections and presents with cough as the only real symptom. The sleep study she had back in September also suggested possible asthma because of her cough and less-than-ideal oxygen saturations during the night. And because her cough occurs primarily at night, he'd like us to see gastroenterology to make sure she isn't having reflux when she lies down causing her cough. Finally, he'd like us to see immunology to make sure she wasn't having an allergic reaction to one of the meds given before intubation (since her last 2 intubations haven't been smooth). So our new plan is to start the Flovent inhaler twice daily, see Immunology this week, GI at the end of the month, and Pulmonology again in March for follow up. And what about her teeth?? I'm still waiting to talk to the dentist again to come up with a plan on that front. Whatever we do will have to occur in the dentist chair, and probably over many visits. So instead of one morning in the OR getting all of her teeth fixed, Violet ended up with a hospital admission, visits to pulmonology, immunology, and gastroenterology, and who-knows-how-many trips to the dentist. Nothing's ever easy with my Violet girl! But I'm so thankful that she recovered quickly from her traumatic event and seems no worse for the wear. And I'm very thankful for all of you who were praying for our girl throughout the day on Friday! As always, God was taking care of her!
