#16 and WOW, Some Good News for Once!

So little miss Emarie had her 16th surgery yesterday. Pretty minor one in our books- just a little ear opening (have to widen her tiny canals each time they put new tubes in), new tubes and a sleep endoscopy. This was all after the dreaded news in this post and the sleep study in this post. 

My brave girl showing no fear as usual in the waiting room

After vitals, dressed and ready to go... still no fear! 

Then came a long wait.... she was supposed to go back by 10:30 and she didn't until close to 12! Which wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't need to get home and clean! We had people coming to look at our apartment that evening and since I'd been having contractions and feeling crumby pretty much since we got back from the trip, I hadn't gotten much done to say the least!  But finally the anesthesiologist came to get my girl.... 

I think maybe she's getting a bit big for them to carry.... 

After that, I quickly got checked in in the waiting area, I ran downstairs to grab something for me and baby boy since it was already lunch time (thought we'd be home in time for lunch!). Then hurried back up since they expected her surgery to take between 45 minutes to an hour. I still wasn't even finished eating when Dr. Muntz came in to say that he'd finished. Everything went well and he was actually surprised by the endoscopy results..... He had my full attention here! Turns out that where he originally thought her obstructions were, mainly her underdeveloped upper jaw and nasal area..... Not it though! And he told me he was a little worried when it all looked good there, that maybe he'd been wrong and that her apnea is in fact central.... I got a little worried here!... But he kept going and then he found her problem, a "floppy voice box" coupled with an "enlarged tongue"..... bottom line is a MUCH, MUCH easier and less invasive fix than a facial reconstruction, but yes she'll still need surgery. But not nearly as bad! Still will need to be admitted afterward, possibly even to the PICU for a bit because it's treated much like a tonsil and adenoid removal.... and well, that didn't go so well for her :/

But all in all a much better outcome that what we were expecting! My first thought when I was told about a facial reconstruction was that I did not want my beautiful girl's face to change..... the face that I've known for well over four years, the face that I kiss endlessly and look at and wonder how she got to be so beautiful. Maybe this is silly, but the fact remained that her tiny nose and small jaw are very much a part of that face that I love, and I was really sad that they were going to change. Now I don't have to worry about that. She will always be my Em of course... but I love her just the way she is! It truly is a miracle that they did not find the obstruction in her palate! Prayers work, hope and faith are real! Especially with our kid who always seems to find her way into the smallest percentages and the most unlikely scenarios.... needing 2 varus osteotomies is proof of that! 

Now after Dr. Muntz left it had been kind of awhile and no one had called me back still to go see her in PACU. And just when I was about to get worried, there was a phone call..... a phone call? It was the nurse in PACU, who said Em was doing just fine SAT-wise, she just was not waking up, so it would still be a bit before they called me. So I decided to get her something for when she woke up, and no I wasn't worried. The anesthesiologist had warned that they were going to use a different method to get her to sleep because of the endoscopy, a method that induced more of a natural sleep and therefor was a little harder to wake from. 

Cute little doll and butterfly balloon from the gift shop

Finally they called me to go back and turns out she was already in recovery when I got back there! Still not quite alert, so she wasn't quite as excited about her presents as I thought she'd be...

And this was pretty much how she was the rest of the time we spent in recovery..... and the hour ride home! But once we were home, she was back to her usual Em self! During said car ride, Dr. Muntz's scheduler called me to set up the next surgery, so we're set for October 3rd. And while we had people looking at our apartment, we went to dinner at Cafe Rio with daddy

And she laughed the whole time we were there! We were celebrating the good news from the surgery and the fact that she had lost one marble at this point.... she lost the other later that night as already mentioned in the last post.