Leaving on a jet plane!

I am so happy. I never thought we would be able to leave early. On our original plan, I was supposed to be sitting in this hotel room with Caroline's one leg splinted, Web was supposed to be back in OKC with Kelsey, and we would be preparing for surgery #2. But like I said in our last post, my timeline has seriously been interrupted!

We were released from the hospital yesterday, 1 day earlier than planned! Caroline didn't need the IV morphine drip anymore. Her pain meds were all orally, so it was hard to justify us staying another night. Not that our nights are easy. Caroline is TICKED OFF. Poor girl, she usually sleeps on her belly, with her legs tucked into her chest. She is so mad that she can't roll over. The last couple nights at the hospital we were literally up with her for hours while she fought the cast. At one time, she was pulling down on the cast thinking she could take it off. Poor thing. It's the absolute worst thing in the world watching your child cry out in frustration/pain. At one time during the last nights at the hospital when I was holding her and we were both crying, I was trying to talk myself into having a conversation with Dr. E about removing the hip spica and saying forget the hip. Who cares if she has a limp? But then I realized that was really selfish of me. So then I thought, ok maybe we can remove the bar between her legs. Because it literally sits right where Baby Boy Browne (BBB) is and he was letting me know he was not comfortable the other night! Imagine a 17 month old crying because she's not comfy, plus a 22 week old fetus moving around in your belly because he's not comfy, plus a mommy who is in desperate need of sleep crying because she has no idea what to do! I am sure the night nurse was petrified to come into our room!

But silver lining. Caroline slept 6 hours in a row last night! Woke up for an hour, frustrated, then went back to sleep for 3 hours! I told Web this morning that she is preparing me for middle of the night feedings for BBB. We are so happy that we get to go home today as a family! As soon as we get home, we plan on hitting Toys R Us, and getting Caroline her own car so she can be transported around the house, plus be outside. It will make all of our lives easier.

As of now, the plan is to be back in Omaha in 5-6 weeks, have her cast removed, put a dye in her hip to make sure the hip is still in place, then sadly put her in another hip spica cast for 6 weeks. Then we will have approx. 4 weeks with Caroline without a cast, then BBB will join us! Never a dull moment! Oh yeah then sometime later in the year, the 4 of us will be back in Omaha for right femur surgery. Oye veh.

We would like to say thank you again for all your prayers and gifts. Web and I don't even have the words to express how grateful we are to you all. I know I owe tons of calls to many of you, and one of these days I will definitely call you back! Please know that your gifts of love and prayers did not go unnoticed. You can especially tell by looking at our bellies! I have never eaten out so much, that I can't wait to get home and just make a salad and put some chicken on the grill!

Roller Coaster Ride!

Well I can definitely say today has been one hell of a ride! First let me start with yesterday, our flights, connection, rental car, hotel, every thing was fine. I let Caroline take as long as a bath as she wanted. I figured it was her last one for 6-8 weeks so she could get as wrinkly as she wanted. I also let her stay up later than usual, because I knew she would be sleeping for the next 24-48 hours. Spoiled little girl. Web and I were asleep by the 10 o'clock local news all was well. Then around midnight we hear this loud beep, then another one, then another. Web and I get up and realized the fire/smoke alarm is beeping, and that the battery must be low. Nice. So Web takes it apart, but the main piece keeps beeping! He is so frustrated and tired that he goes out in the hall and puts it on top of the vending machine! We hear a faint beep for awhile but eventually it stops. The best part is it was still there this morning! HA!

This morning we get to the hospital and I am a basket case. Bonafide lunatic that won't stop crying. I cried to the nurse, to the doctor, to the other nurse, to the anesthesiologist, Web, just crying. Huge tears just rolling down my face, no control. I was petrified that she wouldn't wake up from her anesthesia and we wouldn't be bringing her home. I have watched way too many episodes of General Hospital and Grey's Anatomy. I trusted Dr. E 150% so it wasn't the surgery itself, it was what could happen. We felt totally comfortable with the whole surgical staff, I was just a crying mom. No one judged me, they even gave us time to ourselves once they wheeled her away but at that time I just wanted them to start so I could hold Caroline again.

The nurses must have known how freaked out I was because we got personal updates probably close to every 30 minutes.

Before surgery started Dr. E mentioned that he might go ahead and do her right tibia, and come back and do the hip and femur in approx. 4-6 weeks. Um, no, I thought, that doesn't fit into my plans. I am here for 2 weeks, 6-8 weeks cast is off, I have 2 months with Caroline to play, then Baby Boy Browne joins us and we progress forward! This absolutely did not fit into my timeline. But as I am learning as a mom, nothing is really in my timeline!

He told us he would see how strong her bones are and we would go from there. So as we sat in the waiting room, we had no idea what was going to happen. We tried thinking of "what if" plans, but then just thought we should wait and see what happens.

About 4 hours into the surgery, Dr. E comes out and I think, sweet, done. Not so much.

He was able to pop Caroline's hip back into socket and wanted to see if that worked, plus still do the right tibia. Excuse me? Pop her hip back in? We couldn't do that before? Well no. Because for one, Sweet C, doesn't like anyone touching her legs and two, her bones are so fragile that no one has ever wanted to try in fear that they would break the femur. So since she was under and if he broke it, he could fix it, so he tried. And sure enough, bam it was in place just like that. Now this doesn't at all mean she is "cured". It just means we are going to give it the old college try. He put in the right tibia rod, popped the hip in place and put her in a pink, hip spica cast. I chose pink. Web didn't even bother to argue that one, knowing he wouldn't win! 2 hours later, C is finally in recovery. Best thing ever, getting to see her after 6 hours. More tears, more new nurses thinking "oh geez, she's a cryer". My eyes have never hurt so bad.

So now what?

Now we wait. She has an epidural which is helping with pain management, plus valium and tylenol. She wakes up asking for Elmo, and when the nurses give her medicine she says, "thank you". Nurses love her manners! I think it will definitely work to her advantage later in the week!

Dr. E wants us to stay approx. 5 days in the hospital. Take more x-rays at 6 weeks and find out if her hip stayed in place. If her hip stayed in place, then we have the following options:

1. Take her out of cast, put her in a hip brace either at night or full time.

2. Keep her in a cast for another 6 weeks to prevent any mobility.

Of course, I would love #1. My sweet little 18 lb 4 oz baby is heavy with this cast on! I mean HEAVY.

Or, hip pops out of place and we are back to square one. Surgery on the hip and right femur.

No matter what, we will eventually need to rod her right femur, but as of now that's pushed out. Dr. E explained that one rodding surgery recovery is a lot easier than 4 plus a hip, so not to worry on the right femur. Plus it's not nearly as bowed as her left femur.

As you can see, we have been on a hell of a ride today. Our emotions have been all over the board. We went from this being the short, left side only surgery to both sides, with hip and only one surgery! We have had to cancel flights, change days with the kennel for Kelsey, re-arrange transportation, plus love on our Sweet Caroline.

I can say it is 9 pm, Caroline is asleep, Web is at the hotel and I am going to sleep for the next 3 hours before it's time for valium again. I am sure I am missing more info, and I am sure tomorrow when I read what I wrote I will be appalled by my spelling and run on sentences, but I feel like my lack of sleep is a good excuse! Thank you all for prayers, texts, emails, calls, everything. We have never felt so much love!

Getting closer

One week from tonight, Web, Caroline and I will be in Omaha at the Comfort Inn Suites trying to sleep. Well Caroline will be asleep, because she won't know any different, but Web and I will probably be staring up at the ceilings. Actually, I will be keeping myself busy by packing an overnight bag for the hospital and Web will be playing solitaire on the iPad. Whatever we can do to avoid the inevitable. I know I won't sleep because we have to be at the hospital at 6, and I will be looking at the clock every hour on the hour making sure we aren't late. I still have images of what that morning will be like. I have images I haven't even shared, and I won't share. Just in case, plus they are sad. I have no idea if I have everything that we need. I know that her Easter basket plus all the goodies that go in it are in a box and ready to be mailed. I know that the hospital room has a DVD player, so Caroline and I will be watching plenty of Elmo! Or Mo as she likes to call him. Other than that, I really don't know much else. I have no idea what to expect, but I have talked to some moms that have gone through this similar experience and I know Caroline will benefit from the surgeries tremendously. But still the thought of her being under general anaesthesia for 4 hours, then another 6 makes me want to vomit.

Good news to report! Last week Caroline had a DEXA scan. She hated every second of it, but what 17 month old wants to lie still while a big machine is going over them?

We got a call from the doctor and he was so pleased with her results. I will spare you all the medical jargon. It can be too cumbersome. But long story short, her lumbar area shows a 75 % increase in her Bone Mineral Density (BMD)!!! 75% increase in one year! Hello! This is unbelievable. Now a spine is usually going to do 4 times better than femurs, but considering she can pull herself to a standing position I would say her femurs have an increase too! HOORAY! Seriously, this is great news. All the PAM treatments that we were hesitant about in the beginning are working! All the IVs that I have cried about, and Caroline has cried about have been worth it! Our doctor would like to think that her z score which was originally an -5 in probably more like an -2. But since we don't have all of the information from her 1st DEXA scan and this was a different machine he can't guarantee the -2, but he can guarantee a 75% increase on the lumbar area! He is very hopeful that when Dr. E does the rodding surgery next week he will see strong bones! Which as you can imagine will only help him in the surgery.

We will do another DEXA scan in 6 months to get a better z score, plus we will be able to compare apples to apples, since it will be the same scans as this last time plus same machine.

Web and I are so happy. We deserve good news.

I will try and update one more time before we leave. If I don't, then for sure once we have one surgery complete!

Thank you all again for your continued prayer, positive thinking and just thinking about us. We appreciate it all so much.

Love to all!