Erica's 4th Surgery

The dreaded October 8th finally arrived--after having all summer to enjoy Erica's new found mobility. It was a sad day, and a yet sort of a relief for the day to finally come, so that we could just get on with the healing process.

We arrived at Gillette at 7:00 am for Erica's left hip surgery. She hadn't had anything to eat or drink since dinner the night before, but she was amazingly calm and had a very sweet disposition.

Here we are in the Pre op Department getting ready for her to go off to surgery. I went with her into the operating room while they put her to sleep, which I thought would be very traumatic for me to see. It was, however, quite peaceful. Erica was very calm, and very trusting of the anesthesia team in the room. She fell asleep very easily and without a fight. The hard part was leaving her.

The surgery took 3 hours, with casting taking up about 45 minutes of that time. Her Dr. came out and let us know that the surgery went really well, and that he was very pleased with the results. He was able to improve her left hip dramatically, and he believed this would be the final step toward fixing her extremely dysplastic hip.

We finally got to see her after she came out of recovery, which is always a huge sigh of relief. That is usually the most emotional time for me--once I see her breathing and awake, the tears usually start to flow.

Her Spica cast is a lot more significant that her last three, which I guess makes sense being that she is a lot bigger since her last 3 surgeries. Again, it was a little shocking for us to see our little girl restrained in plaster from tummy to toes. She also had an IV in her forearm, a Foley catheter draining her urine, electrodes on her chest monitoring pulse and respirations, a blood pressure cuff on her bicep, and an oximeter on her toe measuring the amount of oxygen in her blood. It was rather maddening to feel like you couldn't really even pick her up without the help of the nurses.

Here she is all cozied into her Spica chair that Jonathan built for her, and being showered with kisses from her relieved family. These photos were taken just hours post operatively, and we found this chair to be the place she was most comfortable. We could change her position without jostling her much, which resulted in much less pain for her.

Despite how beneficial the chair was to us, she still wanted to be held and cuddled--below we are enjoying some mother & daughter time. It also gives you a good look at the size of her cast. It weighs 8 1/2 pounds, and it is very difficult to find a comfortable way of holding her in it.

This photo is from the day after surgery, and you can see she is feeling well enough to feed herself some fruit. It was really nice to see her wanting to eat and drink again. They had also taken out her catheter this morning, and she had pulled her IV out the night before, so she is sans many tubes in the photo.

And here we are getting ready to go home!! On day 3 post op, the Dr's and nurses decided that Erica was doing well enough to be discharged. She was eating and drinking, voiding, and taking all of her pain meds well by mouth, so we felt very confident that we could take care of her just as well at home. All of the staff at Gillette was unbelievable and made our experience so great, however, it is never the same as being at home. So, Wednesday was a good day for us!! I changed Erica into a cute, little green dress--in celebration of our discharge, and she pretty much slept until we got home.

For more details (journal entries, photos, links, and guest book) about Erica's surgery, please visit her Caring Bridge page at: www.caringbridge.org/visit/ericasharpe