Surgery Day

Believe it or not: CEDIE IS BACK HOME! We managed to get in, do our surgeries, and get out within 22 hours! We had a lot of waiting to do this morning (first they changed our time to 8:45am, then to 10, then back to the orignal time, and then to 1pm) so we took some pics to pass the time. As you can see, Cedie was in a good mood. The first 4 pictures are prior to surgery and the last was after she came back from surgery.

Results: The ear canal on the left side was too tiny to get a tube in. (ironically, she hears better out of that ear...) Once they cleared all the fluid and wax off of the right ear, they found that the tube was still in place and was functional.

Her vocal cords are still paralyzed. Her doctor still holds out hope that they will one day be repaired. He will check them again in a year. -He believes she needs a year to be LEFT ALONE and grow :)

Her trachea looks good. He said that once the vocal cords repair themselves, it will be important that her trachea is in good shape so that we can take out the trach tube.

While they were doing the scope procedures, they found yet another rarity in our little girl (you'd think she has enough :-). It turns out that one of her carotid arteries (where you would feel your pulse in your neck) is serpintine shaped- meaning it makes a S and detours by her throat. This is a very rare thing. There is nothing that they will do about it at this point. It would only become an issue if we ever have to look at taking her tonsils out or any other throat surgery. I'll have to get with my CHARGE friends and see if this is yet another Chargeland twist.

Everyone was shocked at how well she did after the procedures. She only needed increase O2 for 15 minutes or so and they never had to make any other vent changes. Since she was doing so well, they decided to let her go home! Go Cedie!

It is almost midnight and she has been home for almost 6 hours. So far she has slept most of the time but is otherwise doing well. I've checked her temp twice- no fever, and she is handling her feeds well. Hopefully this will continue. Her nurse is here to monitor her for the rest of the night. She's in good hands :-)