Surgery complete!

Josh and I arrived at the hospital around 9 in the morning. They had her hooked up to an IV to get her hydrated, and had withheld food since 3 in the morning. She was fussy and wide awake just like last time. They told me she would be going in about 10:30. About 10:15 the nurse came in and said they would be up to take her in about half an hour. Josh decided to go down to get a coffee while he was waiting and literally 5 minutes after he left they came up to get her. The male nurse who works with the OR team came up for her. He was a real funny guy, who helped lighten the mood. He told me he was partial to girls because he had four of them, and he loved wheeling the babies down to the OR because everyone oohs and aahs at the them as they're walking down ( : I was going to wait in the NICU waiting room, but he told me that I could walk down with them to the pre-op room. I was hoping Josh would show back up before we went down there, because I knew he really wanted to give her a kiss before she went in. We walked through this maze of corridors and restricted areas before we arrived in the pre-op area. I tell you it is a completely different environment down there. It is so hectic with all the nurses and doctors and patients. The NICU is always so peaceful and quiet. Dr. Wilson was the neurosurgeon who was going to be performing the VP shunt operation. Dr. D'angelo would have been who have done it if she had undergone the surgery the previous Thursday. Dr. Wilson was a sweetheart, who did everything possible to put my mind at ease. He reassured me that he would have made the exact same decision that Dr. D'angelo did in deciding not to do the surgery last week. He said that her fontanelle still felt fairly normal, and that even her head size going up doesn't always mean there is a problem, but they ultimately rely on what the catscan shows them, and it showed a definate increased dialation of the ventricles. The anesthegiologist came in and talked with me for awhile about all the risks, and said that since she is prones to having de-sats, that they were going to give her what is essentially a shot of caffeine in her IV. It will keep her from being overly sleepy from anesthesia. The downside to this is it leaves them really jittery. The OR was so backed up I was in the pre-op holding room with her for about an hour. I had my phone but couldn't text Josh because the OR is located in the basement of the hospital and I had no service. I was hoping someone might send him down to wait with me. Finally it was time for her to go in, I kissed her goodbye and they wheeled her off. The nurse told me she would come in the wating room to get me when she was finished in surgery, and they got her all situated back in her room.

I came upstairs and found Josh in the waiting room, and explained why it took so long. He was really upset because he didn't get to be with her in pre-op. He came back to the room minutes after we went down and asked the nurse practitioner if he could come and see her. She said no because it's authorized access only, he than asked if she could walk him down and she said no. He said she was kind of rude to him, which I found surprising because she has been nothing but sweet to me. We decided to go to a late breakfast because we were hungry, and I knew I would go nuts waiting around. The nurse said she would call us if anything went wrong. We came back to the waiting room after breakfast, and at this point it had been about an hour. We waited another 45 minutes, and I was starting to get worried. Josh said I bet you anything she's in the room and they forgot to tell us because that seems to be the norm around this hospital. I said alright lets go to her room and see. Sure enough she was in there, and the nurse was cheking her out. I asked if she wanted us to leave until she was done, but she said we could stay. I asked her how it went and how she was doing, and she told me everything went smoothly and she is doing great. As soon as she woke up from the general anesthesia she was off the ventilator. The nurse practitioner came in to tell me that Dr. Wilson wanted her to reassure me that the surgery went perfect, it couldn't have gone any better. The neonatologist came in and told me she looked great, and had good bowel sounds, which meant they could start her feeding within a couple of hours. They had originally predicted she wouldn't be able to eat until the next morning, so this was great news. He ordered some morphine for her pain. You could tell she was pretty uncomfortable she was wiggling and fussing, as soon as the nurse gave it to her she immediately relaxed. Josh asked when she thought she might come home. She told us to look at it in terms of goals not dates. She has to go a whole week without a de-sat, be weaned off the oxygen, and drink a bottle at every feeding. The oxygen goal was pretty much met, but after the surgery they had her back up to 75% oxygen, because she couldn't keep her levels. I am hoping this is because of being sleepy from the anesthesia, I would hate to see her regress after all the progress she made. They also mentioned that she should meet her goals a little faster because she probably will start feeling better now that she won't have any fluid putting pressure on her brain. So all in all she seems to be on the right track to coming home. I have to add that the shunt didn't look as bad as I thought it would, but it is weird that you can actually see the tube that goes into her abdomen because her skin is so thin. Below is a picture of her, and I put arrows where you can see the tube:

Here is where the shunt went in

Lilah recovering ( :