Phew...Hemangioma Surgery Report

Before and After:




Thank God that's over. The quick version, because I have tons of emails from my students to answer about a lab that's due because I wasn't in school today or yesterday.

We were scheduled for a 10:30 surgery, so we got Andra up before 7 so she could have some apple juice (no solids, no milk after 4am, and we weren't about to wake her up then, so she hadn't eaten since dinner/milk Tuesday night). Drove into the city (about an hour), got to Beth Israel hospital around 8:30 (an hour early, but with traffic around here you never know), and had time for a bagel and coffee (felt badly that Andra couldn't eat but she didn't seem to care). There was another couple with one of their 9 month old twin girls there for a hemangioma on her arm (her twin had had about 7 removed 2 months earlier and the parents couldn't say enough about Dr. Waner and the results). They finally went in around 9:30, we finally went in around noon. Andra was a champ, didn't protest the no eating, no drinking thing at all.

I braved up and asked about the possibility of Dr. Waner looking at Andra's adenoids too. We knew they were enlarged, making it hard for her to breather through her nose (and hence smell, taste) and causing her chronic runny nose, and we were pretty sure they'd have to come out at some point, so even though I felt awkward asking, I knew Dr. Waner was in fact an ENT and so I did. He was so nice about it, saying of course he'd take a look and if they looked bad he'd take them out. So I was happy because I trusted his opinion.

Fred wanted to be the one to go with her while they gassed her to sleep, so my last view of her was a smiley baby pointing at the doctor's nose (the girl likes noses). Fred came back a little shaken up, but it was only about 30 seconds that she was crying.

We got an update around 1:30 from one of the other doctors, who said the hemangioma was a piece of cake (AND he took a picture of it for me...gross but cool) and that the adenoids did in fact need to come out. So out they came! Nice, because it means we avoid another surgery (and the agony of making the decision of when, and if, and whether...) and kill two birds with one stone. Down side is, recovery is worse. With just the H, we would've been out and home a couple hours later (we saw the other baby walking out soon after they took Andra up). In this case, they hemmed and hawed and decided to keep her overnight because her breathing was labored due to airway swelling from the adenoids and being intubated. Guess it's typical for under-3's and adenoidectomies, but since this was a bit unexpected, we were of course unprepared. No big deal. Recovery was rough...she was so disoriented and I swear she cried more in 10 hours after than in the whole previous 12 months combined. Seriously, the girl is not a crier so it was rough to hear. I almost lost it twice, but really that wasn't an option. She vomited ALL OVER me once (I saw it coming and just waited...what could I do? And did I mention, I didn't have a change of clothes?) and did NOT want to be put down. She slept a good chunk of the night on my chest, and when I did manage to transfer to her crib without pulling out any of the 5 things attached to various parts of her body, I got about 30 minutes of poor sleep before someone would come in and do something. Seriously, I was not impressed by the PICU nurses.

When they woke us up at 5:40am (seriously?), Andra was happy, pointing, bouncing, and we had a good day. She was exhausted and went to bed around 5:30 tonight, has woken once already but hopefully will sleep a good chunk of the night so I can catch up so I can go to work tomorrow (Fred and my dad are staying with her).



The two pictures above I got with my phone, the first still in the hospital and the second tonight at home. She needs to have the drainage tube removed tomorrow (hopefully) and stitches will come out in a week, and soon enough Dr. Waner says she'll have no noticeable scar at all. And her baby facelifted eyebrows will settle down in 6-8 weeks, they had to stretch the skin a bit to close.