Onward and Upward.

We are home.

After my update yesterday about waiting, it took another 45 minutes for the doctor to come out, so just right around the hour and a half mark. Dr. W said that the procedure had gone very well, except that they “couldn’t find” Kendall’s subclavian vein, so they had to go in through her jugular, which is what took a little bit longer. I know that to seasoned CVL pro’s, the difference is nominal at best, however, as her mommy, I’d still kind of like to know where her subclavian vein is at. If this seemingly capable and seasoned surgeon couldn’t find it…where is it hiding? I know it doesn’t change the course of kendall’s care AT ALL, it’s just kind of amusing to me. Sure enough, there are four little holes right along her collarbone where it looks like they did search pretty thoroughly for it, and apparently still couldn’t find it with the ultrasound device. So – jugular it is.

Anyways, it took another 45 minutes past THAT for them to come let us back into the PACU (recovery unit), where she was still conked, but had been extubated and seemed to be doing ok. PRAISE GOD that there are still people out there who listen to moms and their intuition, because I had told the anesthesiologist that I would appreciate if he could boost her IV fluids up with some D5 (vs just regular saline) because she just seemed a little off, probably due to being off of  “food”(formula) for almost 24 hours at that point. (She was still getting sugary gatorade until about 4 hours before surgery – just no food or formula). Sure enough when they checked her sugars, she was hanging on in the 50’s, so they did bolus some glucose and then started her cranking on some D5. I shudder to think of how badly that could have gone if they hadn’t taken my thoughts into consideration. I am sure they would have figured this out on their own. But i like to think that it was because I DO know it all. don’t burst my bubble.

When we saw her she was absolutely conked. She didn’t really respond to my voice or touch, and that was kind of hard to see. But a larger part of me was just happy that she was resting well, seemingly not in pain. It took almost 2 more hours for her to fully “wake up” enough for us to assess how she was really going to do to be discharged. That is the longest she has ever stayed asleep after GA (general anesthesia), and while I was glad she was sleeping well (and secretly wishing that i could get that level of good sleep for kaylen just ONCE in her life!), it was tough to see her little body struggling so much with all the heavy meds on board. i was glad they were there, as she looked like she’d been through ten rounds with a heavyweight.

she is just such an amazing little trooper.

So we were able to pack her up, get her in the car where she fell asleep again, and start heading home to collect our children from their various locations.

Getting her back out of the car and into her bed was a whole other nightmare as the “good stuff” had most definitely worn off by then, and her body was definitely showing signs of major pain and stress. It was a frantic time of Ben and I both hooking and unhooking tubes and monitors and bags and pushing meds and just praying over her the whole time that she would be ok, that the pain would lessen, that her airway wasn’t going to swell shut (she was extremely raspy from having the breathing tube in for the entire procedure, and her O2 numbers weren’t giving me warm fuzzies about how well she was able to pull air in). But the meds finally did kick in, and her body did finally find rest.

It was a rough day, a long day.

Today has been better, but it is hard to stay on top of the pain. If we miss that four hour window for more tylenol or ibuprofen (all we have to give her at home, they did not send her home with anything stronger), she is definitely not in a good place. But I hope by tomorrow that we can stretch that out a little bit. We get to take the bandages off tomorrow evening of the actual port location, and the stitches will dissolve over the next few days. The stitches and “steri-strips” over her jugular vein should be out in another ten days or so. A lot of the swelling has already gone down, and now its just a lot of bruising. All in all, she doesn’t look too bad, considering what I am sure was a rather tramautic pulling and poking of skin and muscle and veins to get this “low-profile” port in. I saw low profile very tongue in cheek because if you see her in real life, you’ll wonder what the NON – low-profile version would have looked like!

We could not have held up throughout yesterday without all of your thoughts and prayers. And to my mom and my right=hand=help/wifey Diane – thank you. Thank you for taking on the task of being “mommy” to the other K’s while we yet again focused all our energy on the 4th K. Thank you for answering the hard questions and giving the extra hugs and making a hard day just a little bit more special for all that you did, for all that you always do.

And to all of you who have done or sent or dropped off something more – toilet paper or cereal or a check in a smiley card with a note designed to make me cry….there are no words. Thank you is so extremely inadequate to sum up how overwhelmed I am by the love and care and hope that each and every one of you bring to me, to our family. when people ask me “how do you do it?” I simply say – because of each and every one of our friends and family who hold us up on the days we feel like we CAN’T do it. I need to do a separate proper thank you post. I know there is no way I can ever list you all by name. Some of you I don’t even know who you are or who did what. But you know what you did, and I know that God knows. And trust me that you want HIS thanks and approval far more than you want or need mine. So i hope that He is blessing all of you who have been such an amazing blessing to us. And even those of you who say “all I can offer is my prayers and love” – trust me, that is a gift that is immeasurable.

Prayers are what keeps us going. Prayers are what is helping my poor hurting baby, and her sisters who wonder when the next big emergency will be, sleep tonite.

I am tired, and I am rambling even more aimlessly than I usually do here on my little corner of the interwebs.

Thank you for….just everything.

Here’s to hoping that Thursday is AWESOME.

love and hugs –

me.