Monday October 17th Surgery Day

Hair all braided and ready to go 

The night before surgery we had aunt Traci here to french braid Kate's hair.  I picked Kate up last Friday for her last day of school and the second we stepped out of the office she said "I'm nervous." First time she has said anything about being apprehensive about having surgery. I did what I could to calm her fears, but it didn't help that we were on our way to Rady's to get her blood drawn.

You have to know that this girl HATE's needles. With a passion. We got called back to get her blood drawn and she told the phlebotomist she was nervous, they told her to look away. She said it's easier if I watch. And she did and it was fine.

We had to be at the hospital by 6:30 am and Kate was straight out of bed. Traci and I were the tired ones.

Since Kate had mentioned she was a little nervous I had told the anesthesiologist and she suggested a little pre-surgery medication to calm her nerves. Turns out it was versed. That stuff is strong, and tastes terrible, according to Kate.  She started getting little loopy, we even recorded a couple little videos. She was laughing, we were laughing, good way to start the day. When it was time to go in she just waved and smiled and off she went.

Happy on versed pre-surgery 

We were walked out the waiting room and that's when I lost it. Those kind of tears that are so hard and fast it literally hurts your throat because you're trying to stop yourself from crying. Traci was my rock.  I had asked the liaison, a nurse who keeps families connected to the what is going on in surgery, that I need just a thumbs or something every two hours. She was very accommodating. Once she was 15 minutes late, luckily she gave me her number. 7 hours is a long time to wait to know if your baby is OK.

We finally got the call that she was finished and we went in to talk to the Dr. He told us that everything went fine. She had a slipped disc in her lower back that needed to have more work done on it than the rest. She was fused from T4 all the way down. That is a long, long incision. More work was done on her left side so there might be more swelling on that side and more side effects.

On her way to surgery