Tessa Lou Lou's surgery day...

Tessa had surgery today. She has a condition called Reflux. When urine empties into your bladder there are flaps, one on each side of your bladder, that close once the urine has emptied into your bladder. Tessa's flaps don't close which causes urine to run back up the tubes to her kidneys. This causes infections and can ultimately cause kidney damage. Tessa was diagnosed with this condition 3 years ago. Ultimately we have been waiting to see if she would outgrow it or whether it would correct itself, as in some cases it does. When she had her yearly tests in September the Dr finally said that it was time to correct it.

There were two options for surgery, one option ensures only a 75-80% success, the other option ensures 97% but is more invasive. We decided that if we were going to do it we were going to do option 2 in order to give her the best chance of success.

The first procedure she had done today is called a Cystoscopy, they go in with a scope, that has a lens and a light, inserted into the bladder through the urethra to look for abnormalities. They did this on the right side because that side wasn't as bad. They then correct the abnormalities that they find, which is not too major (they don't really know how bad it will be until they are in there).

The other procedure she had done today is called a Ureteral reimplant where they repair the backward flow of urine from the bladder to the kidney. They did this on her left side. She has a small incision just above her pubic bone.

We opted not to give Tessa much information about what was going to happen today because she already has such awful anxiety that we knew she would have a come apart. We told her (yesterday) that we had to go to the hospital for more tests and that they would put her to sleep like they do for the tests she has had before. She was actually pretty ok with it. We asked that she be given Versaid today to help her relax before they took her back to surgery because normally when she has testing done I go in with her. Since I wouldn't be able to go in with her this time we knew that would upset her (she has had really bad seperation anxiety the last little while - not even wanting to sleep over at her BFF's house because she will "miss us too much" - not sure if this is a result of all the stress in our lives the past year or moving from our house to my sister's to recently moving to an apartment...).

The surgery was almost 2 hours long and everything went fine. She was very weepy & agitated coming out of the anesthesia so they gave her something to help calm her down and we were in Post op for quite a while since she was asleep. We left our apartment at 5:45 AM this morning for surgery and got back home around 12:00 noon.

Once we got home and started on her pain medication she seemed to be doing ok except that she kept saying she was sick to her stomach and was going to throw up. Then she started itching and she was all over the place...playing or walking around one minute and then crying and complaining of pain the next. I expected this, it's common after anesthesia. At around 8:30 PM after her 3rd dose of pain meds (1/2 dose); she finally threw up so we called the Dr. and got something for nausea. She had only slept about 1/2 hour in the 8 1/2 hours we had been home today so the pain meds most likely need to be changed to something different. I will have to call the Dr. tomorrow and discuss it with him.

Here are some pictures of her big day...

Being goofy in the first room we were in while she had vitals taken and changed into "hospital" jammies.

The child advocate (not sure if that is the correct term) explaining to Tessa about the gas mask, the IV, the pulse ox, etc. Tessa got bored with this after a few minutes but she did get to pick out Watermelon smell for her gas mask and said she wanted to be wheeled to surgery in a wagon, not a wheelchair...LOL

Recovery room with her dog "Snowy". She was NOT happy and just wanted to go home! At this point she still did not really understand that she had had surgery. She was very groggy and agitated, they gave her meds to calm her down and she was just starting to fall back to sleep.

On our way home. This was while I was at the Pharmacy Kiosk getting her medication filled.

Just got home & settled onto mommy's bed. She is checking out the gas mask that they let her keep (she had asked if she could have it when she met with the child advocate lady).

Finally crashed at about 9 PM after puking up her pain meds!

We spent most of the afternoon watching her movies, counting the change in her piggy banks, playing with her beads and rocks and having her tell me over and over again "I wish I didn't have to have surgery, this is the worst day ever"! When we first got home today, when she was finally awake enough to understand, I explained that the pain she was having (she kept saying it hurt) was the incision. I explained that she had an owie where the Dr. did surgery to fix the problems so she won't have infections anymore. It's pretty difficult for a 6 year old to understand the whole "bladder infection" thing let alone the surgery that was done.

As she got weepy a little while later she said "I wish you didn't sign me up for surgery"! I almost laughed out loud...LOL! She has voiced that a few times today but I keep trying to explain that it will help so she won't get infections anymore.

Anywhoooo....all in all she is doing well and I hope her recovery continues to go well. I hope she will get lots of rest tonight and that the nausea meds will help her so she can still take her medicine for pain.

It's a scary thing to have your child (or any family member, etc) go under anesthesia. I am so thankful and feel very blessed that everything went well. I know she will rebound well, she is resiliant and amazing!