Hospital Details

Well let's see where to start...I will just start from the beginning entering the hospital at 7:30am on Monday morning. We arrived at the check in point where Shelby was still kind of sleepy since she slept all the way to the hospital. Once there we had a surprise visit from the youth pastor at our church! That was very thoughtful of him to come all the way down there to support us and pray some extra prayers over us before going back for surgery. So it wasn't long and we went back to prep for surgery. I have some pics of Shelby on her the Versed (drunk medicine) before going back. These are the pics of her sticking her tongue out at the camera acting silly. They rolled her back awake but she was so out of it, that she didn't care at that point. It was tough watching her go back.

Well it wasn't but about 20 minutes and the ENT came back in to tell us that the ear tube surgery went fine but that she did have alot of fluid in both ears and a bad ear infection in her right ear. That is the ear that doesn't have much hearing at all in it so she probably is so used to the infections that she doesn't even complain anymore. So now the tubes are in and we hope that will help her hearing and the infections.

So then we waited on pins and needles, but it was only about an hour and half longer and the surgeon called to say that everything went well and he was done and her palate was closed. He said that she had alot of tissue to use so he is hopeful it will stick. He also said that it went well but that Shelby sure didn't like him right now. I asked to see her asap but he said I would have to wait until they brought her down from recovery. They then gave us a room number and went quickly to get there. We waited about 10 minutes and they told us she was on her way. The nurse also said "I hear she has a temper!". Well-yes that is why I wanted to see her asap. She came in the room not happy at all but she did let me hold her and comfort her the best I could at that time.

The first thing she was mad about were the no-nos on her arms. She was thrashing around and pulling and pulling on them to get them off. I asked the nurses if I could remove them and they agreed that I could. So that gave her a little bit of relief; however, she still wasn't happy that the IV splint was on her and that we would not allow her to touch it or take it off. Once she realized that we were not going to waiver on that, she stopped trying to rip it off her hand. So we sat together with her throwing herself around and pinching and scratching and just basically trying to run from the pain and hurt. At this point she was getting morphine through her IV for pain. My dad and Sandy came to the hospital, but Shelby was so mad she didn't really even acknowledge their existence. I really don't know how long she screamed at that point but it was probably a couple of hours and then she went to sleep for about 10-20 minutes or so here and there.

We were doing the morphine in half doses so that she could get some every hour. That really didn't seem to be working to cut the pain so we then went with the full doses every hour and half to 2 hours to how ever close I could talk them into giving it to her. The nurse kept telling me that the meds by mouth usually work better so we then tried the first dose of Tylenol with Codeine. Well that was a big fat mistake. She went completely nuts on that stuff about 30 minutes after giving it to her. She was completely incoherent and out of her head and really hard to even keep her from hurting herself. It was awful to see her out of her mind. Unfortunately the boys came up to the hospital about this time and that did not go well at all for them to see her like that. She screamed at them and did not even want them to look at her or even come into her room. So CJ went ahead and left to take them home and he stayed at home all night with them. So now I was alone with my baby.

Next our wonderful new nurse Amy came on board. She of course was as helpful as could be and she soon realized like I did that we needed to do something different with medicating Shelby. Amy put in a call to our dr to get a new order on some new drugs. She was able to get approval for Hydrocodone and she was smart enough to ask for Benadryl as well to hopefully help Shelby sleep. Not many 2 years olds that I know can stay awake crying and going balistic for 18 hours straight?!

Speaking of acting crazy, this was about the time that Shelby completely turned on me. Talk about some parent rejection. Shelby was livid with me and I could tell that she felt absolutely and completely BETRAYED by her mommy. It was devastating for me. I am sure that my tired level didn't help, but I lost it as well watching my little girl so mad at me. She told me that I was not her mommy and that mommy didn't love her or anyone else for that matter. She insisted that I leave her bed and really even wanted me to leave her room. She pinched, kicked, bit, slapped, scratched, and anything else she could manage to do if I got within reaching distance. She was ANGRY! This wasn't just physical pain that she was expressing, it was also a very real emotional pain. Poor Amy got a crash course in the "parent rejection" part of adoption. I don't think she will be surprised in China if her little one does this to her. Nothing like a LIVE example to learn from. Well needless to say it was a tough tough night and Shelby finally responded to some pain relief from the Hydrocodone. We backed that up with Benadryl and finally my little girl gave up the fight and fell asleep at 6AM. Fortunately I was able to sneak into bed with her and she and I slept until 9AM.

The doctor made his rounds that morning to see if Shelby had eaten or drank enough to release us from our one night stay. Well Shelby had had a whole lot of NOTHING by that point so we were obviously in for another night courtesy of the hospital. Fortunately CJ was able to rejoin us at the hospital that day as I told him that I was spent and had to have some relief. I would strongly recommend that if you are about to experience surgery like this with your little one that if at all possible you have 2 people their at all times. It was very difficult to do everything on my own without assistance to do even the simple things like go to the bathroom! So try to have some help 24/7 if you can. Well our day got a little better one hour at a time. Shelby would of course still have frequent meltdowns, but at least she didn't hate me ALL the time. She started to drink a little bit and she was really hungry so she would try some different things but would taste something and then point to her mouth and tell me it hurt. We finally got her to drink alot of a Yoo-hoo so we decided that only one more night at the hospital would be required.

CJ went home the second night again, but Shelby and I did much better and I was able to sleep a little bit more. My mom and dad came to pick us up on Wednesday morning and we were free to go home with of course our meds in hand. Things have really picked up in the recovery area since we have been home. I decided today that we would do better out and about and AWAY from the kitchen. When we are home she stays in the kitchen alot and asks for things because she is hungry, but once she tries stuff she complains of the pain. Tonight she actually ate the most she has had since surgery and it was mac and cheese blender style. She has drank alot of the yogurt things today too so that is good. We went to the beach today and she played in the sand since that is one of her favorite things to do. Overall we had a good day today and I am hopeful tomorrow will be even better.

So that is our story in a nutshell as I promised. Thanks again for all the well wishes. It is awesome to know that we have such a great support system surrounding us.