TUESDAY January 4, 2011

PRE-OP  PICTURES  - OUR BRAVE LITTLE GIRL

WITH HER NEW PRE-SURGERY HAIRCUT

Alannah and her entourage (Mom, Dad, Grandma & Grandma Porco, Zia Marianicola and Compare Chris - joined later by Comare Teresa, Grandma Doris and Aunt Denise) arrived at

Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh bright and early at 6am.  Shortly after handing out name badges to everyone she was called back to get some pre-surgery vitals and get on her very stylish hospital gown.  Alannah makes even a hospital gown look good!
 Children's of Pittsburgh allows one parent to escort their child into the operating rooom and
stay with them until they are asleep.  Dad got the nod and rocked some WAY TOO SMALL hospital attire, a hair net and "peek-a-boo" mask. (Good thing Dad is the camera man, so no pix of this will ever hit the internet!)  At around 8am we headed for the operating room with everyone in tow.  Everyone except Alannah and Dad went to the family waiting room after giving Alannah hugs and kisses.
Before Alannah takes her naps or goes to sleep at night, she likes to sing the Oscar Mayer Bologna song twice and she does the spelling in the song.  She claims that singing this song keeps her from having bad dreams.  So, Alannah and Dad broke out in song in the middle of the operating room, however
Alannah fell asleep (from the initial anesthesia) before the song was over but Dad finished the song for her.

Dr. Holder (Alannah's neurologist) stopped by the family waiting room and went over the plans for the surgery.  At about 9:20am, all the prep work was done and the surgery began.  Around the noon timeframe Dr. Holder came back to the family waiting room and said that everything went well and the grid is in place and the surgeon was closing up.  About 2 hours later the surgeon came out and went over the surgery
with the family.  He said she did great and did need a small blood transfusion to help keep her hemoglobin numbers up.  This number was 10 at the start of the surgery and had dropped to 7 during the surgery, so the surgeon and the anesthesiologist agreed to give her a transfusion to bump the numbers up.  In addition, Alannah's sodium levels hovered around 140.  The range we are looking for is 133-145.

Alannah was transferred up to the ICU post-op (this is standard procedure) so that she can be monitored for one night before going to the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit. So the entourage headed up one floor to the ICU family waiting area.  After we were allowed to come back to her room to see her in the ICU, Dr. Holder said she was talking up a storm, but it was a little hard to understand her because she was still a little drowsy from the anesthesia.  She was complaining a little about the oxygen mask bothering her face.
One by one, the family members present made a trip back to see Alannah.  In the ICU, you are only allowed to have two people in the room.  So Mom stayed with Alannah as family members came back to see her, but before Compare Chris got a chance to come back to see her, the IV team was going to put in a PICC line to use for the rest of the stay for administering medications and pulling blood for tests.  After several attempts they were not able to get the PICC line in.  They are going to try tomorrow with a dye so they can
see where the line is getting hung up and get it installed.  Alannah is not allowed to have any fluids by mouth until the PICC line gets installed, so she has been getting some moisture in her mouth via a small sponge on a stick that gets dipped in cold water.
When Compare Chris and Dad came back after the attempts to install the PICC line, the Neurology team was in the process of hooking up the wires from the grid to the computer.  The banadages from the surgery were getting bunched up and making it hard to get the cables routed correctly, so they called for someone to come and re-wrap Alannah's head.  Compare Chris gets a little queasy at the site of blood,
so he said his I Love you and good-bye's to Alannah and exited the room.
Post-surgery, Alannah's sodium level has been holding steady at 137, but she has been running a low-grade fever for which she is getting Tylenol.  To help manage the pain, she is getting morphine BUT she hasn't had any since 6pm and it is now 12:50am.  She was bothered more by the IV that was in her foot ( and so it was removed around 8pm ) and the blood pressure pressure cuff that is on her leg than the surgery site.  The nurse keeps asking Alannah if anything hurts and if she wants medicine and she tells her no medicine.  What a trooper!
Thank you to everyone who has been keeping Alannah in their thoughts and prayers!

POST-OP PICTURE



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