Brinlee had her first surgery on Monday October 4th. She had to stop eating formula at 6:15 am and stop drinking water and pedialyte at 10:15 am. We checked into the hospital at 11:45 am and her surgery started at 2:15 pm. It was supposed to be an hour earlier, but they were running behind. Brinlee slept the whole time we waited which was good since she would have been mad about not being able to eat. The surgery itself only took 20 minutes. Her anaesthesiologist was Dr. Bateman and he carried her to the operating room. That was hard for me to watch him take her away from me. I cried. When her surgery was over i got to go see her in what's called the PACU. When I got there the nurse told me she stopped breathing when they gave her pain meds and that scared me, but not half as bad as when i was holding her and she stopped breathing again. It was not a fun experience. She was miserable and wincing in pain and they had to watch her breathing before they let us go to the recovery room. Scott got to meet us there and we were there for a few hours before they decided to admit us overnight since Brinlee wasn't eating. It was only supposed to be a same day surgery. Brinlee was just too tired and hurting too much to want to eat. We finally got her to eat a few times and they released us Tuesday around noon. When we got home all she wanted to do was sleep and she decided not to eat again, but we just watched her close to make sure she was breathing okay and having wet diapers. I think she just needed to recover. Tuesday night she was having breathing difficulties again and we called our friend who works at Primary's over and he helped us suction her mouth and throat enough to help her breath better. I think he throat was really hurting for the breathing tube they had to insert during surgery. She didn't eat at all Wednesday either and had some breathing difficulties that night too, but we tried to suction her again and watched her close. Today is Thursday and she is doing better. She has eaten a couple of times and she seems like she is in less pain. Hopefully she will only get better. It breaks my hear to see my baby girl suffering. They gave her a prosthetic hard palate and inserted devices through her gums and in her nose to help bring her lip down so that on November 30th they can repair her lip. All the devices are internal so they are hard to see, but here are some pictures of our first surgery and hospital stay.
