pharyngeal flap is done!

and so are we! We traveled to Vanderbilt Children's hospital on Dec 9, 2010 for Torie's surgery. We were surprised to hear it was going to be a 2 day stay because the letter from the insurance company said 23 hr observation.(that means you stay 23 hours and 59 mins).But after that surprise things went as expected. It took right at 2 hours. My poor baby had stents put in her nose, going down her throat just past the repair. This was to help her breathing, in case of swelling. Torie worried me Thursday and Friday because she would not drink more than 1/4 of a teaspoon at a time, that no more than 2 teaspoons between those days. She also stopped talking. She actually tried mouthing the words to me before she just started pointing to everything. We had some lazy nurses who let her pain med slip past the 4 hour mark, at one time it was 8 hrs-I was not a happy momma. I specifically asked if she had been given the med when we transferred floors and that nurse lied to me and said yes. At shift change, Torie was running a low fever and getting very fussy. I asked the night nurse Bonnie to check on the pain med. It was never picked up from the pharmacy! Bless Nurse Bonnie, she jumped right on it and took wonderful care of Torie. Saturday morning one of the ENTs took out Torie's stents. I didn't watch. Paul said they were about 4 inches long!!! Torie instantly began talking! And within 20 minutes she had ate most of a pop sicle and moved on to a little Sprite. Now, I'll be honest, Dr Gaudy(our ENT) said it would be instant, but really that quick? I was not expecting that. I did tell the ENT we had to be out of there before the bad weather hit, otherwise they would have to keep me until the snow melted! He laughed and said he would start the paperwork, but to let them know if we had any concerns. Nope, we had none..but it took 4 hours before we got out of there. And another 3 hours to get home because of the rain/trip to the pharmacy for meds.
Fast forward to today and I am snowed in at home. I am sure my work is not too thrilled, but even Paul's 4 wheele drive truck was slipping on the ice. Beside, how many people are getting out in this weather to have their well woman exam? Not many!
Now, I must get off here and make my daughter take her meds. She hates them, but they are for her best.