Primary Children's Room 3059

So yesterday was one of the longest days of my entire life. Well lets start with Wednesday. We had heard there were storms coming through that morning so we headed down late Tuesday and saw the eye doctor Wednesday morning. His conclusion with her eye was that she has "late onset severe lazy eye". He let us know that we do not have to chose surgery but there are not other options to correct her vision. He said that with time her eye will only worsen and that she eventually will not have much control over where it looks at all. He said she would have no peripheral vision or depth perception in that eye at all. He went on to say that it would affect her education, her ability to get a job or promotions, her social life, her ability to find a spouse.... So yeah we opted for surgery. We have scheduled that for April 8th - that sounded good since Sugar's spring break is the 8th - the 12th. We talked about doing it while she was here but decided it would be too much for her. He said we could do it as soon as the first of January and that he did not suggest waiting till school was out. With as much school as she is missing already January seemed too soon so April it is.
So then we just had to wait till Thursday for the real reason we are here. We arrived for registration at 8:15 am and she was taken to surgery at 10. We had the option of a little versed before hand for anxiety issues. They said that because she is older then 6 she did not have to have it - anyone who knows Cass and medical stuff knows why I said um yeah lets let her have that. It was funny to watch her get a little silly before they took her back and I was grateful the medicine made it easier for her to say good-bye. Then the wait began. The surgery waiting room is pretty good-sized but it was also pretty full of parents all anxiously waiting for news of their children. We were told they would keep us updated and they did. It could have been alot more awkward waiting then it was. There were six of us. Barry and I, Jerry and Jamaica (Her dad and his wife) and Jerry's parents. Divorce seems to add a little complication to most of life and so this was no different. It wasn't bad though and we all played UNO for quite a while which was a good time passer. We heard something about once an hour. Always the news was that Cassidy was handling things well and they would check in again. The last call we got they said they were "putting her back together". The surgery ended up lasting 5 long - very long hours. When Dr. Meyers came to see us she let us know how things went. They ended up taking all of the cartilage from her 2 upper ribs on both sides (that's 4) and part of the cartilage from 7 or 8 others. She said they completely removed the end of her sternum and cut 3 triangle shaped pieces out of her sternum. She said they then "cracked" it and she made a motion with her hands like you would when breaking a stick. They then wired everything back together. It was over an hour from the time the Dr. came before they came to get me. They had said only 1 person could go to recovery and I sure wanted to be that person. When we went back they said that it had been hard to get her pain controlled and that is why it had taken so long. There had been a miscommunication and no pain meds at all had been ordered for her. That was quickly remedied although it took quite some time to get on top of things. She ended up staying in recovery for about 31/2 hours. She made it to her room about 6:30 which was a long long time from our 8:15 arrival. She has lots of wires and tubes - 2 chest tubes, 2 JP drain tubes, IV, Foley Catheter, a ON Q which is two epidural catheters going directly into her wounds this applies locating (numbing meds) directly on her wounds. She also has a PCA which allows her to have continuous morphine and she can dose herself every ten minutes with a little extra. She is also taking additional IV anxiety, pain, and nausea meds. It was so hard to watch her struggle - especially in the recovery room. I wanted to cry with her and wish so much that I could take some of the pain and make this easier for her. I have been working on this post for over two hours - stopping to help her and try to adjust her so she will be more comfortable. This morning she thought a banana milkshake sounded good but only took a few sips. I love this child so much - watching her struggle is so hard. I wish she would be grumpy but she just lays so quiet it is hard to get her to respond. Her eyes are so sad it breaks my heart.