After Surgery

We finally after 4 yrs of looking forward to it-- Emma went through her eye surgery yesterday. We went in for 7:30am (no food/drink for 8 hrs prior). Then prep, got into gown put on our party hats (blue clean hats). Talked about what was going to happen and despite the best/nicest ways of putting things when it was time to roll her away she freaked. So of coarse i did too :( Waiting til they called us back was aweful.. i literally felt sick. Once they called us back the surgeon said it all went well and she was starting to wake, so just a few mins later we were able to see her. That short walk i had never felt so anxious.. 'what was she going to look like..' what was the site going to look like...'.... Walking in the room i did my best not to show how shocked i was.. her eye (surgery eye) looked in a permanent state of SHEET TERROR!! BUT-- the other eye was COMPLETELY closed because she was still out of it. It looked AWFUL!! Following behind us was her surgeon and he was shocked too and said it did NOT look that way in the OR and he feared she was going to have to go back under. After she started to properly wake and got a better look he decided she did indeed need to go back under and go through it ALL OVER AGAIN!! *Now Patrick & I are SUPER UPSET!!* Now it's scary enough having your child go under once, but STRAIGHT away again before she's even properly awake from the first one?!! I was terrified.. we asked a ton of questions on how safe it was and we decided it was best to fix it now vs allowing it to heal and come back down and REALLY doing it all over. She was still out of it enough not to realize to was going back in (THANK GOD!!) This time we stayed in her the post op room waiting.. we weren't going back to the waiting room. It didn't take to long and she was back, this time we saw her straight out of the OR she was NOT AWAKE AT ALL!! Seeing your child that way is to say the least traumatizing, especially when you have a child like Emma who is ALWAYS hyper/happy & full of life. Seeing her lay on the bed 100% still & non responsive :/ Her first major movement was TOTALLY an Emm thing-- she HATES blankets on top of her. She FLUNG/KICKED her blankets off and got herself cozy ^_^. Once she was properly waking up she started making funny noises.. then we realized what was bout to happen and we sat her up right and sure enough. She spent the next 1-2 hours throwing up despite not being properly awake. That was very upsetting too.. after 2 changes of bedding & gowns they FINALLY gave her some meds to stop her from getting sick and she started to perk up nicely. By the time we left she was laughing :) The drive home was pretty good, as good as it could be. She slept alright, her only thing is the eye is unable to close and will probably be that way for maybe even several months while the muscles heal & loosen up. So she says she can't sleep cause she can't close her eye. She has several ointments for her eye to relieve any dry irritation along with other meds from the surg. The only pain med she is taking is ped Tylenol. Which seems to be perfectly fine for her, she hasn't cried ONCE about this. When we got home last night she did ask to go to the mirror and see it....................... i don't know what emotion you would call that but it wasn't a good one. I think this very well maybe her first real memory though. Her eye does looks well, there is no nice way to say it. Just imagine what you see when you've a child that's been beaten in the face. I cannot even describe how she reacted or the emotions she felt seeing that. We couldn't hide it from her though I'd rather her see it with us together then catching a glimpse and being freaked out. Her eye looks sooo much better today i can hardly believe it. Yesterday there were deff points were i was questioning if i had made the right decision. It was truly awful, the doc apologized for his mistake. I am hopeful and anxious to see what it looks like once she is healed. Right now you kinda can't even imagine it.. but despite all this she is still my beautiful girl & it has not dampened her spirit at all. She is truly an amazing lil girl. I love her. We all do.

This picture was taken before the swelling started. Cute one of her & Daddy- thats who she asked for first:)