Dr. Hermann's handywork

Emily showing off her new chest. Dr. Hermann did a wonderful job. The incision is about 1 1/2 inches shorter than expected. 

We got home but with a not so fun homecoming

I was not able to update much in the hospital due to poor internet connections. Dr. Hermann let Emily go home on Saturday night. To back up a bit on Thursday they took the epidural out. It was a rough go at first but Emily was a trooper. The pain is under control with medication but Emily is still dealing with alot of nausea. This morning she threw up several times. She still needs alot of help getting around. Recovery is going to be slow. Last night when we got home it was very short lived.  Within about 15 minutes we were back in the car and on our way up to Medical City again. Megan went into anaphylaxis shock. We are thinking it was a reaction to everyone eating at Churches Chicken. Megan did not eat anything but it was caused by being touched after others ate. We are thinking that they cook with peanut oil. It was so scary. We got to the hospital and within about 5 minutes they had Megan hooked up to the heart monitor and had an IV started. We were discharged early this morning. She is okay now. Oh how fragile life is. 

I have been having a hard time getting a good internet connection so it has been hard to update. Yesterday was really a rough day. They stopped the epidural and started Morphin and Emily threw up. She had a hard time controlling the pain and so they had to restart the epideral. Today they took out the epidural. No turning back this time. At some point it has to come out. She is one several medications to control the pain. She is still dealing with a great deal of nausea. 

Tomorrow will be a big day

Tomorrow is going to be a big day. Emily's epideral will be coming out tomorrow. She will experience the real pain from her surgery for the first time. I am praying and hoping that the pain will be able to be well managed. Tomorrow the surgeon will also be removing the drain from Emily's chest. I feel bad with all that Emily has had to go through in the past couple of days. It has been really tough for her. I am anxious about how she will deal with the pain tomorrow. The road to recovery is tough. I am so glad that I did not know what we were in for before all of this began. I am trying hard to focus on down the road when this is all past us.

Hoping for a better day today

Emily had a very tough day yesterday. She had some breakthrough pain, but the big issue was dealing with severe itching due to medication. She is also dealing with some pretty bad anxiety issues. Her anesthesiologist is wonderful. He was able to change some medication around to help. She is now on a pump medication to control the itching. He also prescribed some anti-anxiety medication to help Emily relax. She rested well last night. I hope for a better day today.

Emily had a very tough day yesterday. She had some breakthrough pain but was dealing with severe itching due to medication. She is also dealing with some pretty bad anxiety issues. 

Oh the ITCH

Emily has horrible itching that is making her miserable. The itching is a side effect of all of the other medicine that she is taking. They just upped her itch medicine dosage and we hope that doing this will help. Hopefully she can get some much needed rest. 

Stratton stayed the night with Emily because I was exhausted. I can home and got 10 hours of sleep. This morning Emily went down for another chest x-ray. Stratton stays that she is still very nauseated when she gets in an upright position. The pain is being controlled with the epidural, morphin. She is also on medication for nausea, itching medication due to the narcotics, steroids and some others but I don't remember what they are. 

Emily is very nauseated and is weak. The pain is controlled well right now with the epidural and pain medication through the IV. It is going to be a long recovery. 

Surgery was a success

Emily's surgery went very well. We were called back at around 2:45pm. There were no complications. 

Surgery has started

They started at 10:17am. The doctor's were running late. Emily was very brave.

We are here...

All is well. The Valium worked well to calm her. Her vitals were great. 

Today is Surgery Day

I am a bundle of nerves and didn't sleep much last night. I woke Emily up at 4:00am and gave her Valium that the doctor called in last night. I am praying that this will help her to be more relaxed and not so scared and anxious. We have to be at the hospital by 6:30am. Praying that all goes well this morning. 

With Tender Loving Care

With Tender Loving Care

I can't be there to hold your hand,

I can't be there to hug you,

I cant be there to dry a tear, 

But there is one thing I can do.

I can sit here in my room at night,

And dream of you out there,

And make a blanket just for you

With tender loving care.

When you hold this blanket in your arms

And close your eyes real tight,

You can feel the love I tucked inside

When I made this late one night.

So dry your tears and smile a smile,

You aren't alone, you see.

You have this special blanket--

You have a part of me.

Poem by Pam Braden

When Emily went to pre-0p and she was scared they gave her a hand knit blanket and attached to the blanket was a card with this poem written on it. 

4:00am Prayers

I have not been sleeping the best lately. This morning I woke up at 4:00am and could not go back to sleep. I was feeling anxious. I began playing out in my my mind tomorrow's pre-op appointment. I then began to worry about Monday and surgery. Knowing that I would not be able to get back to sleep I went out to lay on the couch and began praying. Eventually I fell back asleep. This morning God answered my prayers. The child life specialist at Medical City Dallas called because she had heard that I was not going to tell Emily about surgery. She was concerned and we talked for awhile on the phone. She said that she was going to call me back after she had talked to a couple of people about Emily. She called back and everyone that she talked to agreed that coming tomorrow for pre-op would only make things worse. Instead they are going to have us come in very early on Monday morning and do all pre-op stuff then. Wow, my prayers were answered. They are also going to contact the anesthesiologist and ask if they can call in something for Emily to take either Sunday night or Monday morning to calm her a bit. The child life specialist is also going to meet with Emily Monday morning to help Emily get through the morning. What a blessing. God is good!!!!!!!!!!

Surgery rescheduled

Surgery has been rescheduled. Emily will be having surgery August 18th at 9:30am. We have decided that we will not be telling Emily about it though. After what she went through this last time I just don't want her to have to spend time worrying and being scared. Next Monday morning we will just go to the hospital and tell her that we have to go to make sure that she is healthy for surgery. After they do everything that they need to do for pre-op then we will let her know that we are there for surgery. We now just need to stay healthy and well for next week. 

Waiting

This morning I called the surgeon's office and am patiently waiting for them to call back. 

Surgery cancelled

Due to a very, very, very low grade fever surgery was cancelled. The first time they took her temperature it was 100.7 and a half hour later it was 99.3. Mind you she was a bundle of nerves, which in turn made her physically sick. I knew she wasn't really sick but there was nothing I could do. Emily frequently throws up when she is very anxious. They agreed that the throwing up was due to nerves. The surgeon still said no because of the fever. After coming home and we all started talking we suspected that it was just a bit of dehydration. A combination of not being able to drink in anticipation for surgery and throwing up this morning because of nerves she ran a bit of a fever. After coming home Emily settled down and once she ate and drank she was fine. I took her temp several times and and it was between 97.5 and 98.1, far from a fever. Emily is perfectly healthy.I am quite upset. I wish that they would have thought through it more before sending us home. I called the surgeon's office and explained everything. The nurse said that she would contact Dr. Hermann and call back.  Well they never got back with me. This only added to my frustration. I can't believe that we are going to have to go through this again. After surgery being cancelled the first time due to the surgeon's office scheduling mix-up and now this I am emotionally spent. I can't imagine having to go through this all again. This past week has been so stressful and full of anxiety for both Emily and myself. 

The Beginning

I have created this blog to chronicle the events of Emily's surgery. For those of you who my not know about Emily's problem here it goes. Emily was born with what is called a pectus excavatum. In simpler terms her sternum is malformed. The middle of her sternum caves in thus giving her a sunken chest. Over the years we have taken her to a Pediatric Surgeon to have her evaluated. This past May she had a CT scan that showed compromise on her heart. The Pediatric Surgeon referred Emily to a Pediatric Cardiologist for evaluation. After testing the Cardiologist determined that Emily's sternum was pressing on her heart, her heart had been pushed over to the side of her chest and was also pressing on a lung. The decision was then made that Emily would need to have surgery to correct this problem.