This photograph was taken by Kelsy Greisen of Red Willow Photography (She is Amazing)
We are home from surgery tonight and all exhausted after a long day. It never ceases to amaze me how tired we all are after a day at the hospital like today. We don’t really do anything all day but sit and wait, but yet here we all are exhausted.
Emma did well today and both doctors were happy with how the procedures went. Emma didn’t have to be to the hospital until 10:30 today, so she had chemo this morning and we managed to hold her off with no food all morning. They accessed Emma’s port right away when we got there, unfortunately it still didn’t seem to be working. It would take fluid in, but they couldn’t get any blood return from it which means that it isn’t functioning well enough to be used. We are very thankful that Dr. Abdessalam, the general surgeon, had blocked out some extra time for Emma just in case her port wasn’t working. The doctors decided even though the chemo isn’t being administered through the port it was still important for blood draws and future use, and since the port wasn’t working we would go ahead and take her old port out and place a new port on the left side of her body. We were so glad that he was able to get a new, working port put in while Emma was already under anesthesia.
Emma also had x-rays of her left leg done before surgery today. Yesterday at therapy Emma’s therapist were very concerned because she wasn’t putting in weight on her left leg and when asked to try and walk she would barely put weight on the left leg to bring her right leg through and was screaming in pain when she did. Dr. Sindelar had us bring her and he looked at the leg and decided we needed to start with x-rays. She was very sensitive to having her lower leg/ankle/foot touched and moved. She seemed to be in quite a bit of pain. Of course this also the foot with the ingrown toenail so the doctors aren’t sure if that is part of the problem too. The x-rays today showed that there was no broken bones or visible stress fractures, which is good. However, this means that we have no idea why her leg seems to be bothering her so much. Dr. Abromowitch said we will have to wait and see how she does once her toe heals, but if it is still bothering her, we need to consider that it could be muscular or tumor related. We are hoping and praying that it isn’t and is related to some more acute injury or the toe.
The OR was running behind today, so they didn’t take Emma back until almost 1:30. The poor baby did good with no food that long though. It never gets any easier to watch them take her away for surgery, no matter how minor the procedures are. It just breaks my heart. She was only in surgery 40 minutes, and they tell us she did great. My aunt had surgery today at Methodist Hospital across the street, so we enjoyed having many of my cousins and parents around to keep us company during surgery today.
Dr. Legge, the opthamologist, injected Botox into the outer muscle of both eyes in the hopes that as the Botox wears off both eyes will learn to function together and help Emma to avoid having double vision. He was happy with how things went and so far other than Emma’s eyes being a little red and itchy she seems to be doing pretty well. He said we can expect some crossing of the eyes and maybe some droopy eyelids, and perhaps some clumsiness but hopefully she will tolerate it all well.
The general surgeon removed her toenail from her big toe on her left foot. He said that it was impacted pretty good and took some digging to get out, but hopefully that will take care of all of the issues and pain Emma has been having. He also took out the old port and placed a new one. He placed this one on her left side and down lower under her arm about midway down. So Emma has three fresh incisions from the removal and placement. She is pretty sore around the incisions and her toe, and pretty tired from the anesthesia but otherwise she is doing pretty well. We are happy to have a working port to make lab draws easier and less painful for Emma.
Thanks to everyone for all of the prayers, messages and support today. It means more to us than you know and once again all of the prayers got Emma through surgery with flying colors. Even though the port still wasn’t working, God blessed us with a successful day of surgeries and has kept the pain level tolerable for our Emma and we thank him for that.
We are looking forward to heading out to Kearney this weekend for Emma’s Fun 5K Run/Walk. We are excited to see everyone there! If you are in the Kearney area, the run/walk is at 10:00 at Yanney Park and we would love to see you there. Thank you to everyone for the continued prayers and support.