We went down Thursday night since we had to be to the hospital by 7am Friday morning. Olivia had an ultrasound at 7:15 with an expected surgery time of 9:45. The doctor ended up being ready by about 8:45, so she was able to get in early. Steve and I were able to wear gowns, hats, and masks to go into the OR with Olivia. I sat holding her on a chair and as they just hovered a little mask over her nose. They even allowed her to keep her pacifier in as she went to sleep. It only took a few seconds and she didn't cry one bit. I think it made a big difference that they allowed us to go back with her.
Her surgery only lasted about 1 hour before the surgeon came out to tell us that everything went perfectly and that she would be in recovery for about an hour. We were back into her room by noon. Once she really woke up from the anesthesia she was very upset, so they gave her more morphine through her IV. She also had a tube coming from her stomach as well as a catheter into the bladder. Then for the most part she slept the rest of the day.
Children's Hospital was such a nice place to be and very family friendly. We had our own private room that had a large flat screen TV in which you could watch movies for free, a couch and chair, an Xbox, refrigerator, and a dry erase board that had all of Olivia's information on it and even a place we could right down our questions or things we needed to tell the nurses.
By Saturday morning Olivia was feeling much better. We could tell she was having bladder spasms because she would tense up really quickly and once the pain medicine started to wear off she got much more upset. The doctor came in around 9am and said her incision looked fine and the drainage from the tubes was looking good, so he pulled both tubes out and said she was good to go once she was eating and taking meds fine. We ended up being discharged by about 3pm.
We decided to stay one more night in the cities, in a hotel, per the doctors recommendation. He didn't want us to be 3 hours away if something went wrong her first night out of the hospital. She did end up getting sick in the hotel that night, but we figured it was because of the Codeine she was taking. She seemed much better in the morning, so we headed for home.
It's amazing to us how quickly she is recovering. She has no restrictions and can play like normal, take bathes, and even go outside in the pool. Her incision is about 2-3 inches and has no stitches...it's just glued together with a clear bandage over top. She'll be out of daycare for the next 2 weeks and Steve will be home with her most days, so she'll get some extra TLC.
She'll go back to see Dr. Vandersteen in about 8 weeks and will have an ultrasound at that time. Then again in about 6 months they'll do the VCUG where they'll shoot the die into her bladder to see if it's refluxing. That's when we'll know for sure if the surgery has worked. In the mean time, her surgeon says it's 98% effective, so we're hoping for the best. If everything is good 6 months from now, she'll have another ultrasound in a year as the final checkup.
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