Lydia's Surgery

As I write this, Lydia is sleeping and her monitors are beeping away here in the pediatric ICU.

  Lydia after surgery

It's been sort of a roller coaster ride since yesterday morning, but we are so thankful to have the surgery behind us and we're praying that she will have a quick recovery.

The day before the surgery we went in for Lydia's head scan.  It's really amazing what they can do with technology these days.  In two seconds a little red light went over her head and within seconds the image of her head was on the computer screen.  

Lydia's first head scan

Aren't I cute?

After the scan, we met the parents of the three other babies that would have surgery the next day.  It was neat to meet other parents who were facing the same procedure and were going through the same emotions.

After we signed release forms allowing research to be done on the bone that would be removed during the surgery, we met with the the surgeon and were told that surgery would be at 11:00a.m. and to come to the hospital by 9:00 the next day.  That evening we got a call that said that the surgery was going to be at 8:30 and that we needed to be at the hospital at 5:30a.m.  So, we figured there was a change in the scheduling of the four babies having the endoscopic surgery.

After we arrived at the hospital, we were told that the call we received the night before was a misunderstanding between the hospital scheduling and the craniosynostosis surgical team.  We were reassured that Lydia was still to be the third baby of the four to have surgery.  At 10:00 there was an unrelated emergency surgery within the hospital, so our surgical team lost one of their operating rooms.  This put them behind schedule.  Finally at 12:00, the anesthesiologist prepped Lydia for her surgery.

People must have been praying, because despite not eating since 4:00 in the morning, Lydia napped and wasn't too fussy for the eight hours before the surgery.  This was truly amazing as she typically likes to eat every 3 hours, even at night.

At 2:00, we got the word that the surgery was over and that they were sewing up her incisions.  A little while later we met with the surgeons and were told Lydia did great and that they were pleased with the surgery and that we should get a very good result.

   Dr. Jimenez (pediatric neurosurgeon), Dr. Barone (pediatric plastic surgeon), "Wai" (RN)

Shortly afterward we were taken back to see Lydia.  Her head was pretty swollen, especially the areas where the bone was removed.  She had two 1-inch-long incisions, but no bandages.

 1st Post-Op close-up

Lydia with Mommy and Daddy

At first Lydia was really fussy.  She'd dose for about 20 seconds, then start crying again.  They gave her some morphine and that helped slightly, but she still seemed like she was having a lot of pain.  It was so hard to see her like that and not be able to do anything.

The nurse was quite concerned because Lydia's heart rate was between 200 and 230 beats/minute and even when she was calm it was between 180 and 190 (normal 130-150).  She said the high heart rate could be due to pain, dehydration, or a loss of blood.  They took a blood sample and her hematocrit came back as being 26 (it was 35 before surgery, 31 immediately after surgery).  They said if it got down to 17 they would have to do a blood transfusion.  They also started monitoring the size of her head to see if her fast heart rate could be an indication of internal bleeding.

 Trying to find out what's wrong

Finding out that the nurse was concerned and that there might be a chance of internal bleeding made our stomaches drop and we both almost broke down and cried.  Later a team of doctors came in and tried to determine what could be the problem.  They concluded to wait two hours to see if Lydia would have a wet diaper so that they could rule out water retention.

Just before the two hour limit, Lydia had a wet diaper, which was reassuring.  The nurses worked to get Lydia to relax and fall asleep and her heart rate slowed down to 170 bpm.

Around 3:00 in the morning, after I tried feeing her I noticed a lot of blood and saw that her IV had come out.  The nurses tried and tried to start a new IV but didn't have any luck.  The nurse measured Lydia's head again and it had increased slightly.  She threw up her pain meds and later she started choking and then spit up some liquid.  The nurse took a sample of her blood and said that if her number went down, that they would do a CT scan of her head to look for internal bleeding.  I was so worried!

About 45 minutes later the results of the blood test came back and they were fine.  Her stats have stabilized and her heart beat is now in the 130s.  They are concerned that she hasn't really been eating.  She has quite a bit of swelling still, but when she's awake, her eyes are big and open.  Dr. Jimenez stopped by and said that she looks great.  He said that how she looks now would be after a whole week with the traditional, more invasive surgery.  Wow!  I felt like the recovery for this less-invasive surgery was hard enough!

A little while ago, another neurosurgeon stopped and said that Lydia's numbers look good and she should be able to go home today.  What a relief!

Lydia this morning (complete with an IV, blood pressure cuff, heart rate toe monitor, and electrodes)

We praise God that Lydia is doing better and we thank you for your prayers for Lydia.  Wow, it was so comforting to know there were so many people lifting her up in prayer.  Please pray that her swelling will go down, that she will start eating well, and that she will have a quick recovery!

~Kelli