Surgery and Recovery

Noah (saying goodnight to Kylie the night before surgery), "Don't worry Kylie. I will protect you.'

Wow, last week was wild! Through all of our adventures, Kylie has been doing great so that's the good news. Before I go into the story, here are some before and after pictures of Kylie's belly....

Before

After!

The marks on her belly are from various bandages and marks from surgery. The docs say that they think it should pull back in and heal up like a normal belly button. Pretty crazy huh??

So, back to last Tuesday... We had to be at the hospital at 6:30 am so Waylon, Kylie and I were up and out of the house by 5:45. Grammy was at our house to stay with Noah and take him to school. When we got to the hospital, we got all checked in and started asking and answering lots of questions. We managed to snap a few pictures in between people coming into the room. :-)

The doctors took her back at 7:45 - she happily went with them and she had her paci and her lovey. Then came the wait.... very stressful. The doctor came out at 8:45 and said all went well and she was waking up. He said they would come get us in 10-15 minutes so when 15-20 went by, I was going crazy. They came and got me to head back to be with her (only 1 parent was allowed in the recovery room) and when I got back there, she was sleeping in a crib. They got her up so I could hold her and there were wires coming out of her all over the place. It made me thankful that this is the only thing we've had to deal with. I know so many parents have to see their kids like that for other reasons and I can't imagine what they go through. She had an IV and pulse-ox thing, a blood pressure cuff and some things taped to her chest.

She was not happy when they got her up for me to hold her but calmed down pretty quickly. They were trying to get a good base of pain meds in her and it made me nervous to see the nurse pumping meds into her IV but I knew it was helping. She just wanted to sleep but everyone once in a while, they wanted me to move her around and basicaly see if she would calm down without needing the meds. She managed to do that pretty quickly and we were back to a post-op room by about 10:00. The nurses went through the after care info and the doctor poked his head in again, too. Then we were out of there! We left the hospital by 10:45!! It was all very quick. Kylie was still tired and groggy but perked up a little as we were leaving. She slept most of the way home and most of the afternoon also.

She spent most of the afternoon on her back. If she wasn't sleeping, she was laying flat. Every once in a while, she would start to try to sit up or roll over and then would cry and give up again. I was pretty surprised at how immobile she was and thought it might turn into a long recovery (despite what people had told me). Well, around 4:30, she proved me wrong.... I put her down on the floor really just to see if should would sit up on her own and she got on all 4s, started crawling, pulled up on the coffee table and played for about 15 minutes! I was in shock. After that amount of time, she relaxed a little more and then had another about 30 minutes of playtime again before bedtime.

Noah needed to get out of the house some after dinner but it was drizzling out so I decided to take him out to jump in the puddles. He LOVED that! We got Maddie out there too and she liked it also (after being a little hesitant about getting dirty). :-)

Snuggles with Grammy that night.

Family snuggles.

Kylie slept great that night - didn't wake up at all except when we went in to give her Tylenol or Ibuprofen (they told us to keep giving it round the clock for the first 24 hours) - and woke up happy as could be on Wednesday morning. She seemed almost completely normal that whole day except for a few moments where she seemed to hurt a little when it was time for medicine. We went out for lunch and a little shopping that afternoon. It was nice to have some time together - just the girls. :-)

My mom made a lasagna that morning and the PLAN was to have dinner with Waylon's parents that evening. We got Kylie dressed up in a new outfit from Grammy before they came...

When Nana got there (about 5:00), I lifted up Kylie's dress to show her the bandage on her belly (it was a piece of gauze with a clear piece of tape over it) and there was blood soaked through the gauze and pooling under the clear tape. I called the doctor and he suggested we head in to the ER so Kylie, my mom and I immediately headed off to Wake Med to meet Waylon there while Nana stayed with Noah - Grandaddy came soon after also. After an hour and a half there, they told us they didn't think it looked right and transferred us to UNC (what a waste of time!). At this point, the bleeding had stopped and she was still happy and normal. They didn't want us to feed her though just in case we had to go back into surgery or something.

We got to UNC around 7:30 but then had to check in there and go through triage, etc. The ER doctor called for the pediatric surgeon on call to come down and, at 8:45 told us it would be about 20 minutes... well, an hour later he finally came and told us that it looked fine and normal and she was okay. Ugh! What a stressful 5 hours for that! It was good that we went though and they did need to take a look at it. They think a stitch (on the surface) may have popped or just that some fluid had gotten trapped in there and finally escaped. Poor Kylie hadn't had anything since a 4 oz bottle at 3:30 - she finally got to eat at 10:15. After stopping for a Rx for anitbiotics (just in case), we got home around midnight.

This was a shot of our amazing girl around 9:30 or so... can you believe after all that she had been through, she was still happy and smiling like this?!

The next morning, it was back to normal again.... happy as can be!!

This is her new thing... she loves this fish and carries it around in her mouth! It's too funny. :-)

Megan and Ryan came over and got Kylie a get well soon present! So sweet. I think Kylie and Ryan are going to be great buddies!! They are only 4 months apart. Funny how that time difference seems so much at first but they seem to get closer in age the older they get.

After dinner on Thursday, Grammy left to head back to the lake. We really appreciated her coming to be with us. She (as always) was a huge help.

Breakfast Friday morning - Kylie is eating more and more 'real' food and if Noah is eating and she's not, she's pulling up right next to him wanting to see what he has. We have to feed them at the same time these days - which is a good thing for me!

They are really starting to play more together also. You should hear them 'talking' to each other in the car. Kylie has found her voice and will do this high pitch scream/squeal... which of course Noah has to repeat back to her... and then they both just crack up. It's so cute!!

Kylie has also started dancing. When she hears music she'll bounce up and down and smile and laugh and then clap when she's done. So cute!!

Saturday morning, we drove around to check out some houses. Waylon and I are considering moving pretty soon. We knew this house was not our 'forever' home and we think now is a good time to move on. We are looking for a little more room but mainly a bigger neighborhood with a pool! We are thinking about building and also have to sell our house so it won't be anytime really soon. We'll see what happens. Anyway, we found some cool places and are starting to get a little excited.

Saturday afternoon was still pretty yucky out so we stayed indoors and relaxed some before Nana and Grandad came back over to babysit for us! We went out to dinner with our friends Jenn and Jay. It was a much needed outing after a long week. I was our of work all last week also so I needed some non-kid time! :-) Thanks Nana and Grandad!

Sunday morning was still pretty nasty weather so it was a lazy morning but when it cleared up, we took a walk with Maddie and Mason and then decided to go out to lunch with them so we loaded up and took off to Moe's. The kids had a blast but we left a huge mess under the table. Kylie and Mason kept holding hands - it was the sweetest thing!!

After lunch, Waylon took off with Kylie to head over to his parents for what was supposed to be a fairly quick trip to work on his car and Noah and I went over to Eli's house to play (after I had to wake him up from a nap). We were going to go to the pool but it was actually a little cool so we just played at Eli's house for a few hours. Lots of fun!!

When I got there, Tim started pushing the kids so Evia and I sat down and relaxed! :-) What a nice treat!! :-)

More fun in the yard.

Play-doh time!! They were making up silly words here and laughing so hard! It was funny.

Time to relax and read a little.... they could be brothers!!

Cole wanted in on the action! So cute!!

Noah was very well behaved while we were there and I was very proud. I let him watch Little Einsteins on my phone on the way home as a treat. :-)

When we got home, we had a mommy/son dinner and lots of imagination playtime afterwards. It was nice to have a little one on one time with him. Waylon and Kylie didn't end up getting home until almost 8:30 but he and his dad got the car fixed and Nana and Kylie got some good one on one time also.

So this week we are hoping to get back to more 'normal' life. Kylie is healing really well and I think we are back on track now. Hope everyone has a great week!!! Thanks for reading!