Ellie woke up Monday morning just in time for her last feed, and I took her down to the sitting room so that Drew and Soph could get some more sleep. Soph hadn't been asleep before 10pm the whole time we were there, and she'd been waking up at 6am. The last thing we needed was a tired, cranky toddler.
She finished her bottle with just a few minutes to spare, and then power-chucked the whole thing back up. I'm not kidding - there was so much milk covering me, the couch and the floor that there was just no way there could have been any left in her tummy. I know from experience that you can't convince her to drink any more after a vomit like that, but I managed to get her to take another 50mls half an hour later, even thought it was technically the fasting period by then.
She went down nice an easily for her nap, and I started packing our bags for the hospital to distract myself. I had that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach again. I don't really know what I was so worried about. I knew that the fasting was going to be horrible, and that I would have to walk in to the hospital, but I don't think at that point the actual surgery was really on my mind.
I was fighting back tears all morning. I had to keep ducking in to the toilet to have a quick cry and breathe in to a paper bag to calm myself down. I didn't want to cry in front of anyone and upset them as well.
Ellie woke up at 9.30am and demanded her bottle. By 10am she was screaming, and it was breaking my heart already. I gave her a bath which always calms her, and she cried herself to sleep at 11am for half an hour. My nerves were shot and it had only been a couple of hours. Its so hard knowing exactly what your baby needs and not being able to give it to them.
When she woke up we headed over to the hospital. As well as Drew and Soph, there was also Bec and Ash, and mum and dad. They'd came down over the weekend to support us and to help with Sophie during the surgery and recovery so that we could focus solely on Ellie.
Although I'd been worried about going in to the hospital, I managed to walk straight through the door without another panic attack. Upstairs, the surgical admissions floor was packed wall to wall. There wasn't enough room for us all in the waiting area, and Ellie was screaming, so I took her out to the hallway to walk her up and down.
I had been doing so well up to that point to keep the tears contained, but as soon as one of the nurses came over and asked how we were doing the floodgates opened, and I broke down. I was sobbing, and she was so lovely and took Ellie for a while, just walking her around and shhh'ing her. I stood there in the hallway and cried on Drew's shoulder. I couldn't go back in to the waiting room because I didn't want Sophie to see me so upset.
After we'd been there for almost an hour we were taken in to a little consulting room to go through the admission details, and told that Doctor Kimble would be in shortly, an we would be the first surgery on his list. Ellie finally fell asleep in my arms and we went back to the waiting room again.
There was another little boy in the waiting room who was having his palate repaired. He had been fasting for the same amount of time as Ellie, but was doing a much better job of staying calm. He actually seemed quite happy and content, I guess because he was a few months older. Talking to his mum I found out that his surgery was only going to take an hour, and it seemed rather un fair that he was going to have to wait for our two to three hour surgery before he got his turn. But as it turns out, he was taken through not long after.
By 2.30pm we were all starting to get angry. Ellie had been screaming for hours, with small, 10 minute naps here and there, and we'd been cooped up in the hospital for too long. We kept being told "half an hour" "going in soon" etc etc, but no one ever came to get us.
I had gone from being nervous and scared about the surgery, to just plain pissed off that the whole process was taking so long. I just could not understand why Ellie was being forced to fast the entire day. She was so upset, and by 3pm she was showing signs of dehydration.
Finally, at 4.30pm we were taken through to the surgical waiting bay. We'd been at the hospital for almost five hours. It had been 10 hours since Ellie's last feed. My surgery nerves started flowing back in, and I was feeling really jittery again.
After about 10 minutes in there a man in surgical scrubs who we'd never seen before came over. He said that there had been a problem with the first surgery and because it had gone so far over time, they were going to cancel Ellie's surgery.
I exploded. I don't think I've ever been that angry in my entire life. I screamed and shouted, shook and raged but of course it didn't do us any good. I couldn't believe that they had put my baby through all of that for nothing. I was wild.
He said that they were trying to get her on the list for the following day, and he wanted to admit her overnight. There was no way I was having her stay there though. We somehow negotiated to come back the following morning, after putting Ellie through the whole fasting process all over again, and I stormed out with my screaming, dehydrated baby.
Back at Ronald McDonald House 15 minutes later, I was worried that Ellie would drink her bottle to fast and make herself sick. I had to keep taking it out of her mouth and burping her so that she would slow down. She managed to drink it all without any problems, and as soon as her tummy was full she fell asleep, finally happy again.
While I was feeding her Doctor Kimble called. Bec and Drew spoke to him because I was busy. He wanted to apologise and ensure us that he would do everything he could to get us in the next morning. I was still incredibly pissed off, but it was good of him to call, he didn't have to do that.
While Ellie was sleeping we went down to the kitchen to say goodbye to mum and dad. Mum was having surgery of her own the next day, so they had to get back home. I could see they were both upset that they wouldn't be there for Ellie, but mum's health was just as important.
After a cup of coffee and with the screaming finally stopped, I was starting to feel more in control again. I managed to put together a plan to get Ellie rehydrated again by waking her for feeds every three hours up to 2am when she had to start fasting again.
We had dinner, which was cooked that night by a group of volunteers, and headed back upstairs to feed Ellie again and get Soph ready for bed. She had had such a long day, and she was coping really well, especially after seeing everyone so upset.
At 10pm when I fed Ellie her nappy was still dry. She hadn't had a wet one since she woke up at 9.30am, and I was worried about what another day of fasting would do to her. I finally fell asleep around midnight, knowing that I would be awake again in an hour to give Ellie her last feed. It had been a horrible day.
No comments:
Post a Comment