Emily has surgery

Emily had a peaceful night in the ER. I, on the other hand, didn’t sleep one wink – not even one! The nurses were amazing and brought in a second stretcher for me to lay down on but I was too wired over what was happened and too worried that Emily would need me. We got word around 5:00am that there was a bed waiting for us but we weren’t able to get ambulance transport until 8:30am.

Emily enjoyed the ambulance ride and did well until we got to the new hospital and the paramedics moved her to her new bed. I can’t blame her, they did rustle her a bit moving her over. We weren’t in our room more than 10 minutes when the surgeon’s physician’s assistant came to evaluate Emily. There was only one problem, the surgeon was Dr. Brian Vickaryous and there was no chance in h*ll that I was going to let him touch my daughter. Side story, Dr. Vickaryous was the doctor that operated on CW’s leg and then didn’t speak to us for THREE days. When we complained to staff we were told that we were fortunate because he treats pediatric parents the same way. He’ll operate on children and then not talk to the parents for days! The PA was shocked and started telling me that Dr. Vickaryous was the only specialist in the hospital and I politely told him that I had no problem taking an ambulance to another hospital. He kept arguing with me and then said I politely but firmly said “there is no way I am letting Dr. Vickaryous operate on my daughter”. Then I was told that Vickaryous wasn’t going to operate, he was just going to put her to sleep, set the leg and put a cast on it. I said he still wasn’t allowed near my daughter. As he stormed out, I apologized to the nurse and she told me that I shouldn’t apologize (hmmm, wonder if she knew the same thing I knew about this doctor). Turns out Vickaryous isn’t the only specialist, in fact, while he is an orthopedic surgeon, we were referred to Dr. Woo who is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon.

Dr. Woo was absolutely amazing! He said that casting her leg wasn’t the best option because of the large bruise and large amount of swelling. If we casted her leg, we wouldn’t be able to watch the bruise and swelling and might run into a situation like with CW where they ended up having to operate on his hematoma. Instead, he recommended external fixation with four pins and a rod. The beauty of the external fixation is you can get it wet (even swim) and she’ll be able to walk in a couple of weeks. She’ll have to have the rod for the same amount of time as a cast – 8 to 10 weeks but at least she’ll be able to walk.

I cannot begin to say enough wonderful things about the staff at this hospital. Lauren was our nurse and Amber was our Life Care Specialist. The Life Care Specialist sits with the children and explains to them what is going on medically so they aren’t as scared. Amber got Emily a teddy bear and a doctor’s kit and Emily got to act out what was going to happen to her. They didn’t have pins and rods but Emily was able to put a pink cast on her bear (which was what she was hoping to get when she found out her leg was broken). Amber went down to surgery with us and passed us off to Jessie who was equally wonderful. She brought in some beads and a string and Emily made a beautiful necklace while we waiting in pre-op.

I had already spoken with Dr. Woo about Emily’s anxiety from her first surgery so he agreed to let me gown up and go into the OR with Emily until she was asleep. I gave Emily my iPad and she played it up until she fell asleep. It was such a wonderful experience for her (and me). Emily’s surgery was supposed to be 45 minutes but it ended up being over 2 hours. Turns out the surgery was only 38 minutes but because she was so little, they had to send a courier to the children’s hospital to get the right equipment. Emily did great during surgery and Dr. Woo was confident that she would make a full recovery. The post op nurses were amazing and let me back to see Emily the first sign of her waking up. I was the first face she saw when she fully woke up which made all of us happy!

Emily slept most of the afternoon but around 11:00 the pain kicked in full force. It took a half hour to get the pain back under control and get Emily back to sleep. I finally got to close my eyes a little past midnight.