Lilly's surgery...done!!!!

Good morning all I wanted to give a not so quick update on Lilly's surgery and how she's recovering.

Tuesday morning, we went to the hospital at 8:30 to get checked in to wait for her surgery. We got a room in "short stay" to wait for the doctors. Lilly took a nice little nap, this made Momma and Daddy very happy because it made her forget how hungry she was :) Around 10:15 Amaw, Grandma, Mimi and Papa Jay showed up to visit. Lilly was awake for them and she didn't hesitate to let anyone know that she was starving! Papa Jay walked her around the room and tapped on the wall and the window to keep her occupied.

Finally around 11:30 we walked my sweet baby down to surgery. They let us walk her to the doors before we had to play the waiting game. Children's Hospital in NOLA is the best! They won't even start an IV in a baby until they have given her nitrous gas. So I'm sure Lilly was a happy camper the whole time. We got an update from the doctor around 12:30, they did the cystoscopy and found some good news. Lilly does have a duplicated collecting system, meaning she has one kidney on her right that is drained by two ureters, one of which was healthy and went into the bladder in the correct place and the other, which was very swollen, skipped the bladder and went into the urethra (this was the one causing all of the reflux and infections). The urologist said that instead of reimplanting the swollen ureter into the bladder (the original plan) that he was just going to take it and splice it into the good ureter in the bladder. This procedure would be a shorter and less painful recovery. Which meant less inpatient hospital time, no stints and a happier baby! But he said that he wasn't sure that this would be possible until he actually did the incision and got a look with his own eyes.

So we waited and waited, then around 3:30 we got the new from the doctor, that he was able to splice the two ureters together!! He said they were doing the nerve block (like an epidural) to keep Lilly pain free for a couple hours after she woke up, then they would take her to recovery and we could go and get her when she started waking up. Around 4:30 we went back to recovery to get my baby! She was so loopy and groggy, the expression on her face did not change when she saw Mike and I. The nurses showed us the incision and drain, the incision matcher my c-section scar and the drain should come out next Monday. She was pretty numb from the waist down so she was like a lump when we picked her up. She nursed a little then we were off to our room.

Here's my little lump of a baby, just starring into space

Once in our room, Lilly threw up from the anesthesia and then she slept with her eyes partly open for a couple of hours! And then around 7:30 she woke up, we think it was because the block wore off and she was screaming her head off! She couldn't get any more pain med for another hour so we gave her some mylicon for the gas and just held her and cuddled until she settled down. After getting some pain meds my buggie did great! She nursed two more times without throwing up before she went to sleep around 9:00. She slept pretty much all night except for when the nurses came into her room to take her blood pressure or give her more medicine. Lilly woke up HAPPY at 6:00am and nursed and played with us. Her urologist said she was doing great and we could go home that afternoon! We got one last pain med infusion around 11:30 then waited to leave the hospital. I think it was around 1:15 when we left for good. We made sure to get a note from each of her nurses and the doctors on her pink poodle so she can have it as a souvenir.

She was happy as a lark and pain free enough to play with her catheter :)

Here she is IV and catheter free!!!

So right now Lilly is off of all narcotic pain meds, she has an rx for them for breakthrough pain but right now she is doing great on infant motrin. She is sitting up, rolling over, eating, nursing and playing like there is nothing wrong. She seems a little sore when I pick her up and change positions but aside from that she is fantastic!

**As you can see "Stern" was a big hit at the hospital, thank you Miss April and Mr. Adam!!