Surgery Day

Well our journey has begun. Cecilia is now in a full body cast. It is much larger than I expected and we all hate it. It also has a bar across the legs which the doctor and nurses say makes it easier to pick her up. Which may be true but dressing her is more difficult and we can't get as close to her.

Anyway her surgery was on Tuesday and it was honestly one of the hardest days of my life. I don't know a mom out there that won't cry uncontrollably when her perfect little baby is taken from her to go into surgery (and continues to cry every time she thinks about it). But thankfully they were able to do the closed reduction and just cut a tendon to loosen the leg to get the perfect fit. The doctor said it sat really well and there was no question as to the open reduction. This is good because the recovery time is a lot less and we were able to bring her home same day. She cried that day more than I think she ever has in her entire life combined. She was mad, and I'm sure in pain, when she woke up. Thankfully they called me back quickly and I was able to nurse her, which calmed her considerably. It was so hard to see her screaming at the top of her lungs and in this HUGE cast and with dilated eyes from the anesthesia. Of course I cried too. Had a hard time stopping since too. But everyone who has gone through this says the first 2 weeks are the hardest. We just have to make it through these two weeks and everything will get better. I just can't help feeling so sorry for my little girl who keeps trying to pull the cast away from her and whom I can't cuddle and comfort. I can't help wishing we found this sooner so we could do the harness which would be so much easier to deal with. I can't keep from crying when I give her a sponge bath on her head and feet remembering when she loved to take baths.

But I'm also grateful that we found it before she was mobile because I know it would be so much harder on her if she knew how to move and couldn't. I'm grateful for her spica chair which will allow her to sit up and play and where we can feed her. I'm grateful for the online group where I can hear others stories and be grateful she will only have this for 3 months and hopefully never again. I'm also so very grateful that Cecilia is an otherwise normal, perfect baby.

At the hospital we had to wait with other families whose children were having surgery. How grateful I am that Cecilia doesn't have a feeding tube and tracheotomy and who is going through her 4th surgery and she is only a year old. How grateful I am that I'm not the mother of the teenager who has a severely scarred face. Or the mother of the 6 year old so skinny that I can carry her in my arms. How grateful I am that Cecilia has a curable condition and after these next 3 months we can look back and never have to worry again.

So day two and we are sad and grateful.