Today Is Not The Day

Surgery was booked for 8am today.  I knew it wasn't going to be good news when I saw the surgeon still in his street clothes at 830.   Due to a unexpected trauma that came in, Jessica's surgery was postponed.  They had a meeting and discussed that Jessica would need to be intubated and would also  require some blood transfusions which will be hard on her lungs.  Everyone agreed that the intensity of the surgery was too risky not to have the ICU bed available.  So now the surgery is booked for Monday morning....if no traumas come it!

Montreal Bound

Rain, rain, and more rain!

The weather hasn't been the best this weekend.  Non stop rain to the point where we are all thinking we should start building an ark!

What to do when it's raining....go shopping! :). 

Tonight we are Montreal bound.  We've been well fed (thank you Penny and Tiff) and well rested.  Now we have to get Jessica ready for her big day tomorrow.  Tonight we will bath her in a solution to prep her for surgery.  We will also have to do that in the morning before heading to the hospital.  This is to ensure she is well disinfected so no "bugs" will cause an infection.  We are told that they have booked the Operating Room for the whole day due to the complexity of the surgery and also to be prepare how intense this will be on Jessica.  Soooooo....Here we go!!!

Chilling By The Pool :)

Looks like we are only going to have one day of sun while we are visiting.  Soooooo...we made the best of it :)  

Love this picture!

The boys and Jessica were the only brave enough to go in the pool yesterday.  I was told the pool was sitting at 80...but my big toe disagreed!!!

Jess enjoying her morning movies in the trailer whil she feeds.

The leaves are FALLING!!!!....ugh!

Missing my Everything...

...Steve and Jess :)

I'm pretty lucky to have a person in my life to take situations head on!  Right now Steve is in Montreal for the pre-op before Jessica's spinal fusion.  With all jessicas surgeries and appointments, Its difficult to stretch my vacation and sick time.  The weekend can't come fast enough!  I'll be meeting up with them Friday after work in Ottawa to spend some quality time with the salmon family before heading back to Montreal Monday night.

Tuesday morning will be busy!  We have done this so many times, but now we will be in the new hospital.  This means...WE HAVE NO IDEA WHERE TO GO!!!...ugh.

We knew the routine at the old hospital like the back of our hand.   I'm nervous but excited at the same time.  New hospital might mean Jess gets her own room !  I've always found that part hard...sharing a room with one to three other families.  This will help in jessicas recovery :)

Heading Home

We are heading back home today...yeah! We are going to keep Jessica home from school for the next couple of days.  Monday she will be back to her regular routine with school.

Discharged!

Down to imaging for X-rays this morning  

Daddy and jess

Jess did awesome!  Now we wait to hear from ortho to see how the X-rays are. This always seems to take the longest. The dr's are very busy. Once we get the ok...we are outta here :)

Woohoo!!  Heading back to Ottawa for the night.

Jess locked and loaded!  See everyone soon :)

Little Miss Sunshine

She's BACK!!!!

Big smiles for mom and dad this morning :)

Last night was pretty good in comparison to past surgeries. Jess has remained on her pain medication (ketorolac and Tylenol ) and antibiotics.  She had an ok sleep. I couldn't leave her side because she would startle herself and practically flip over the rails!  Jessica is sensitive to noises and all the beeps and buzzards would jolt her out of her sleep.   Around 3am her stomach was bothering her. She vomited a small amount but the nurses gave her MAXERON and no issues since.

Right now she is taking her full feed at her regular rate along with some puffs that she LOVES.

The Dr was in early on his morning rounds. GREAT news...once we get her X-rays and she finishes her last dose of antibiotics, we can leave!  Woohoo!!!!  We might be able to leave tonight if no complications.

A first!!!!

Yeah MAXERON!  

Wow...this has never happened!  We just finished Jessica's first feed and NO vomiting!! This medication will now top our list of "things that work".  There has not been one surgery, until now that she hasn't had a "pukapolooza".  

It's funny how a lot of the nursing staff and doctors who look after/treat Jessica never forget her.   Jessica has developed quite a routine after ever surgery. Groggy from the anesetic, to vomiting shortly after waking up, to pukapolooza after the first feed, to bowel issues!  Haha...not this time. This is sooooo awesome! After 6 surgeries, we maybe have found something that works :)))

Day one has always been a tuff day up until today!  Jessica isn't her typical smiling self, but we have jumped huge hurtles in the stomach issues post surgery. 

We got a great email from her class with a video of the kids singing. Thank you, thank you, thank you...it's the first time a smile has crossed her beautiful face :)

Road to Recovery

Nothing unexpected.  Jess was groggy when she woke up and then nausous from the anesthetic shortly after.  The staff were on it and gave her gravel and maxeron ( not sure how to spell it). it's  a anti nausea medication that jessica has never had.  We will see if it helps...

Poor Jess!  Not her finest moment :(

They have moved Jess down to the regular ward.  She still isnt 100% herself but getting better :)

Still no smiles, but at least shes sitting up and watching some tv.

Surgery Day

Jess went into surgery this morning around 9:00 am.  Dr Ouellete was able to talk to us prior to jess going into surgery.  He was thinking it should be a straight forward lengthening which would take about 1.5 hours before we would see her in recovery.   

We got to see jess inrecovery around 11:00.

She is a little groggy from the anesthetic.

Dr Appointment update

Here we go again!  

My little SUPER girl

Last week Jessica had her pre-op appointments in Montreal. Great news from the surgeon. Jessica's curve is holding around 36 degrees.  This is the FIRST time Dr Ouellette has said he's "happy". He is thinking Monday's lengthening may be the last!  Usually we get x-rays three months after surgery, however this time it will be 5 months after :))))  

Jessica has on going issues with her bladder. Recent tests has shown left kidney measures 2cm smaller than her right one. This is something the doctor wants to keep an eye on.  Jessica is still not fully emptying her bladder so she will continue with her medication indefinitely. We will do more testing in Orillia when we get back.  

This weekend we will be down time with the family. Aunt Arleane organized an amazing party for Penny and we got to celebrate nanny's 70th BIRTHDAY  :)

Sunday night after dinner we will make the trip back to Montreal. Jessica's surgery is scheduled for Monday morning. I'll keep the blog updated.

HOME

We were discharged Wednesday afternoon!  Fastest ever :).  We broke our long drive up in two days. We stayed with family Wednesday and made our trip back home Thursday morning. 4hours in the car and still happy. Jess is amazing!

A dressing change was done when we got home and her incision looks great. We have to keep a dressing on it because she is constantly rubbing it! She doesn't seem like she is in pain. It's more like its itchy and bugging her.

Jess will be back to regular routine on Monday. She will be sooooooo excited to see her friends :)

Getting better :)

The night went well  and Jess was able to go pee by herself without catherdization. I think she heard us talking what we had to do and didn't want any part of that!!!  Now that the anestetic is wearing off Jess was able to keep water down this morning. We also gave her some food which helped made things move along.  Her bowls are working great and had MANY "code browns".

Ortho was by this morning and said that if she tolerates her feed, we will be discharged. Right now her IV is getting taken out. Hopefully my next blog is about our trip home ;)

Text Book

We should have seen this coming.!

All was going great. We were slowly giving Jess 10cc's of water every 10 minutes. She tolerated that great so they decided to try to introduce her food. Not good....pukapolooza!  Happens every time!

The game plan now is to stop feeding her.  Give her gravel to help with the nausea.  She is still receiving her fluids through IV. We are going to keep her comfortable and try food in the morning.  We are also concerned because she has not gone pee. They also did a bladder scan and she is boarder line for catherdization.  If she doesn't go on her own, we will have to put a catheter in to release the pressure.

They also gave her pain meds twice since surgery. Hopefully the night goes well :)

Surgery Day

We were wide awake around 2am this morning because the hotel walls are so thin.  We could hear the flags blowing in the wind like we were standing right beside  them!!!

It was an early morning. We registered at 645am and talked to Dr Ouellette prior to the surgery. Jess went into surgery around 8am and we got to see her in recovery around 10 am. Jessica had an intolerance to morphine which caused a longer stay in the hospital last time we used it. They then gave her Nunain which worked amazing on her. Since Nubain is no longer made in canada, they have given her hydromorphine. So far no reaction to this :)

We will be trying to slowly give her water. Fingers crossed she can keep this down. Dr ouellette has also ordered X-rays on her back this afternoon.

Montreal Bound

I feel we have done this drive over and over again and Steve could probably do it with his eyes closed....but we won't be trying that :).

This will be Jessica's fifth surgery on her back.  Things don't seem as nerve racking for us because we know the hospital routine now. We are heading to the  hospital tomorrow morning around 630 am to register for 645am. She probably won't actually go into surgery until 730-8am at which time we get to talk to Dr Ouellette prior to the surgery.

I will try to post as soon as I can :)

Evening Drive to Ottawa

Almost there!!!

Can't wait to hit the pillow because we have an early morning to fight Montreal traffic. 

Thursday brings pre-op appointments in preparation for surgery. Jessica 's date has now changed to Tuesday morning which now lets us spend some time with family ;)

Home Sweet Home

In record time... We are home :)

Jessica did amazing and her recovery is unbelievable!  The car ride home was good. We kept her topped up with Tylenol and Advil just in case she was in pain. You couldn't tell though. She was so content watching her movies. 

Can't wait to get back into routine of things. Jess could probably go back to school tomorrow, but we are going to give her a break until Monday.  

Speedy Recovery And Maybe Discharged...Woohoo

Everyone that has seen Jessica is so surprised that she had surgery yesterday. She certainly brings a smile to many faces and has an impact on the nurses and doctors who have looked after her.  Jessica's anesthetists' from last year recognized her, came over and gave her a big kiss on the forehead just before her surgery!   He just loves her and called her his little precious.  It was funny because Jessica's new anesthetist told him to step away from his paitent...sooooo funny :)  This is the only hosptial where I have felt that my child it is great hands when Doctors love what they do and love their patients as much.

Jessica had some visitors today...and she didn't know what to think of them!  By the end of their visit, she was laughing at them especially when they sang to her :)

So funny watching her look at them 



At around 2pm, we headed down stairs to the X-ray department. It was short and sweet. Two images later, we were back in the room.  

Now we wait for Orthopedic to look over the X-rays and they are the last ones to give us the green light to leave.

For the rest of the afternoon Jessica ate some puffs, cookies, apple and watched her movies.

Ortho came at the end of the day and gave us the go ahead to leave ;)...woohoo! Off to Ottawa for the night, then back to Huntsville tomorrow.

We rolled in late to Ottawa.  Poor girl must have been exausted because she hardly ever sleeps in the car! 

 

On The Up And Up...Maybe???

Hello there!

I wasn't able to post any pics the last couple of days so here's a couple from reovery

Jess just waking up after surgery.

Dad checking her toes...all 10 moving :)

 Well hopefully things are on the UP and UP!!  Last night we stayed in the recovery ward.  Nice because it was WAY  more quiet.  BAD because mom slept in a rocking chair.  We are now in the Regular ward.  Jessica has tolerated a full feed (but watered down).  Physio came down to see if she could sit in her chair and of course Jess was fine with it. 

Jess sat for a good hour and only had to be moved because she left mom a little SURPRISE.

Jess watching Dora and in her happy place. 

 It's lunch time now and we are going to try another feed at full strength and at regular speed to see if she can tolerate it...fingers crossed.  As of right now her bowels are on track, she has not had any narcotics since the morning,  she's tolerated a feed and the nurse just discontected her IV from the pole but left the lines in...just in case.  We are still waiting to see xray. 

A little tired but all GOOD.  Now for a coffee that my wonderful husband just got me :)