Riley's Surgery

Riley's surgery was Monday morning at Children's Hospital, we had to be there for 6am, they gave her a little hospital gown and explained to us how the surgery would go. I think they finally took her back to the operating room around 8am and of course, I lost it! I was an emotional mess, but her surgeon, Dr Moses, promised me he would take of her. And Scott told me if Ella Kate was here, she would say "It's ok Mommy!, Don't cry." He was right, so I dried my tears and was ok from that point on.

So we waited in the waiting room with so many other families all with children who were in surgery for different things, really puts things into perspective and made me realize how lucky we are that all we were dealing with was a cleft lip. Mom and Martha came and kept us company while we waited. Ms Angela stayed at home with Ella Kate and we called her with updates.

Dr. Moses finally came out around 1030 and told us everything went great! I asked if she looked good and he told me "No, she looks GREAT!" This was the best news ever and we were all so relieved that she was out of surgery and doing well. He told us we could go and see her in recovery soon. Scott was so happy he went into the way overpriced gift store(that he swore earlier he would not buy anything from) and bought Ella Kate and Riley stuffed animals.

Once in recovery, we got to see her and she did look great, swollen and bruised and a little unhappy, but great! She was only in recovery for about 30 minutes and then they moved us to her room for the night. She did really well with the pain meds and we finally got her to start eating that night. She had a really good night, we had a small scare when her respirator alarm that detects her breathing went off about 4 times and each time a nurse would come running in. Her breathing would go right back up again so they said it was ok and explained to me that she was in such a deep sleep that her breaths were really shallow. But other than that, she was a trooper and they all said how amazing she was doing with her recovery! We were able to come home yesterday morning, we are all exhausted but doing well. Her swelling is going down and she is eating again like the little piggy she was before the surgery. We go back next Monday for the stitches to be taken out. She will have to wear these little arm guards for the next couple of weeks so she does not fool with her incision and has these little splints in her nose, but she seems to be doing ok with both right now.

The girls both sleeping on MeMe the night before surgery-


The day of surgery-