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| Ali goes back to visit Children's Hospital |
| To understand why this trip has significance, I must take you back 4 years. Ali was born on a Monday evening in March. I had her without any drugs and we were doing wonderfully, or so it seemed. By the next morning, she still hadnt really breastfed at all. I am not fond of hospitals. So we told the nurses we were ready to go home, they cleared me and Ali to go home. In fact they cleared her as an A+ baby. This was extremely wonderful to us, because during the pregnancy, my previous doctor had been worried about some dialated loops in her bowels. In fact the previous doctor had been worried about Cystic Fibrosis and Down Syndrome. They contiually conselled us to abort her, which was not an option to us. So we changed doctors. The next doctor said it was no bid deal, the previous doctors had overreacted. So when Ali was considered A+ we were excited thinking, "he was right!" |
| Unfortunaty, he was not right. They were wrong about CF and Downs, but there was a problem. We found out shortly before we left the hospital, Thank God. She hadnt been eating well, as I had said before, and since it was my first time, I decided to try with one of those "coaches" before we went home. Before she was able to get there, Ali started spitting up, GREEN! Don rushed to get a nurse and they rushed Ali off (with Don of course). I dont know exactly what happened, because I was in my room, getting packed, assuming what ever was going on, I needed to have my things in order. I assume in that time they did an xray on her tummy and got a tube in her nose and down to her tummy to pump the stuff out, because that is how I next saw her. Don showed me the xray, and told me that an ambulance was coming to transfer to Children's Hospital. Only one of us could go, so I sent Don. Luckily, my dad (and maybe my mom, I was in a daze) had come to see us and he said he would take me. They still hadnt explained fully what was happening. But what we were told was that the back up was do to the dialated loopes in her bowel, nothing could get through and bile and bowel juices were backing up in her system. The wonderful la leche lady, did show up and I explained to her what was going on. She was so wonderful and positive. She went and got me a pump machine and did the paperwork for me. She said, "she is gonna need this milk, when this is all over, and this will also keep you occupied, while you have to wait" We packed it all up and headed to Children's. When we finally got there (it was snowing), they had her in the NICU (newborn ICU) and had already taken more xrays. She would have to have surgery. This was the scariest moment, they made us sign papers. These papers not only aloughed the surgery, but also stated, that if there was nothing the doctors could do, we allowed them to sew her back up and that would be that. Terrifying. A few hours later she came out of surgery and was taken by the waiting room in her isolet. I was shocked, because she was put out for the surgery, she looked lifeless. They had a resperator and no one knows how many other things attached to her. The surgeons explained, as we walked with them to the NICU, that is was worse than they had expected, but she was ok. Her bowels had not been connected at all at one section, just sealed off. There was also a piece of dead bowel in the middle, just "floating free"(a version of joujunol atresia -sp-) They opened both ends and reconnected them. In the process they found another birth defect, and only by God's hand didnt kill her in finding it. Normal people have a spiderweb of veins that feed blood to your intestines, she has only one vessel that wraps around her intestine. If they would have cut it, she would have died, there would have been no way to save her. They removed her appendix, hoping to reduce the chance of her having another surgery that would endanger that vessel. *Side note- she is soon to get her Med Id anklet to warn for this God protected her though, and she was now in the recovery stage. This was a relatively new surgery at the time (or at least thats what they told us) and recovery was tough, she was not out of the woods. She came off the resperator quickly. But still had lots of wires and the tube to suck out the green stuff. For a while, all we could do was stroke her head, arm, etc. It was frustrating, not being able to do anything, but we still had her and we taking in every moment we could. We stayed in the parent rooms, for 2 nights. Then we decided, me rather reluctantly, to go home and let other parents that lived farther away have our room. We basically went home to sleep, then would come back as soon as we woke up. We were night owls, wo we would sleep early morning to daytime and come back in the evenings. Thank goodness for snack machines, or we probably would never have eaten. She wasnt allowed to eat till they could prove that the surgery was healed enough to process food. She was fed through a tube in her arm. She was a rascal, and soon was not happy with this. She pulled out her nose tube way more than once. They needed to do a barium enima to prove she was ready to eat. She had 2 of these over 3 weeks. I would not wish this on my worst enemy. I was only present for one of them, but I cried and cried afterwards. She fought it so bad, that Don had to hold down her arms while 3 people (2 nurses and a doctor) worked at the other end keeping the tube in and working. Yes it took 3 people, she may not have had altogether bowels but at least some of them were really strong because she kept pushing the tube out. It sounds painfully funny to me now, but at the time, we were horrified. It took almost an hour. After that (it was the 2nd one) we decided they would not do that to her again. Luckily, we never had to force that. She was healing well and she could eat. Thank goodness for that pump, because she had to be bottle fed only a little at time (so they could measure her imput vs output) She got to be quite the rascal then. They could only start her on about a half teaspoon, oh that made her mad! She cried/screamed alot, and the nurse, volunteers and us all were kept rather busy keeping her occupied. They slowly worked her up and she continued to take food wonderfully. It was a miracle, her input and output went right to normal, as soon as the doctors aloughed. She went home 3 weeks later, and other than being a little smaller than the "norm"(whats that anyway) and 2 scars (tummy and arm) you would never know! So this year, we went back to visit and see if any of the same nurses were there. They were and they were so wonderful! They took pictures and made it really fun for Ali. We plan to do it every year. |
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| Sorry its so small its a long story! |