Sorry to keep you waiting

Sorry its been so long since I last posted about Alena. She's home now and doing really well, so i'll go ahead and tell her hospital story. They put in a homograph of the pulmonary valve and stitched closed her hole and put a stitch in her tricuspid valve which is leaky.

We went into the hospital and sat around for the deemed length of time that you have to sit around in a hospital then they gave her a little oral versed so that she would get sleepy and the transition to the surgery room would be alot easier. She got really loopy and started giggling and acting like a little drunkard. Surgery itself lasted 8.5 hours which was a bit longer then expected (6 hrs), she was on bypass for two hours.

When she got out of surgery she looked so much better then she ever has after other surgeries. An odd side effect of the homograph is that it gives you horrible breath. That night they started letting off on the sedative drugs but with toddlers they are either up or down. Alena was up constantly and she was still on the ventilator so she kept thrashing and arching her back which probably only hurt herself more. We had to hold her down but during one of her quiet times we were giving her a sponge bath and she ended up jerking and pulling the ventilator tube out of her mouth by accident and thank goodness she was ready to be extibated because she could have died by not breathing on her own. She was just fine though and the reason why she had been thrashing all night is because they couldnt find a pain medication that would work for her. Finally in the morning around 7 am they put her on something called Dex and that worked for her. She passed out for the next day or so and then woke up for a day. She was doing so well that she tried to climb out of the bed several times and trying to stand up by herself just two days after surgery. On the fourth day they discharged us and we came home. They also did a heart echo on the last day and discovered that the pulmonary valve is leaking but its supposed to, the hole is sealed nicely but that the tricuspid valve is still leaking but not enough to require any further intervention.

All in all it was actually not too horrible. We are glad to be home now and resuming normal toddler activities such as tantrums over tv time and picky eating.

False Alarm and borrowed breastmilk.

So last night we got home pretty late after going to the Cloth diapering store (a Baby connection) and Alena had already fallen asleep in the car so we brought her in, got her dressed for bed and laid her down in her crib without doing anything else since she was so tired and has not been sleeping well lately. She woke up about 11 pm and was sooo hot to the touch and couldn't breath through her nose. We thought oh boy... she's got a cold seeing as George (husband) just got over a cold. We tried so hard to get her to not catch his cold aka limited touching and holding, no kissing, and tons of sanitizer. We thought we had it good seeing as I didnt even get the cold. So we gave her her allergy medicine (that we had forgotten to give her before we put her down for bed) and gave her some ibprofen. She slept till morning and she's fine now so we think its just that she had insane allergies (like mommy) since we didnt give her her allergy medicine.

On another note

Our friend Jamie is breastfeeding and was so generous as to let us have some breastmilk for Alena to have before her surgery (about a week before up till the surgery) and perhaps right after the surgery to help boost her immune system so she'd recover faster from the surgery. I'm so thankful to have friends like Jamie. The unfortunate thing is getting a toddler to drink the milk! She almost likes it, she switches between liking it and gulping it down and not wanting it at all after the first sip. So far we have gotten 18 oz down her little gullet since saturday so thats a start. My goal for today is to get two servings since she didnt have any yesterday.

I'm also packing for her surgery on friday, and goodness I feel like we are going on vacation except I dont feel excited.

Thought i'd share a few pictures of alena lately. The first is of her trying to help me clean. The second picture is of her making a huge mess in the living room. The third picture is of her black eye she got a few weeks ago.

Enjoy!
-mary

Getting ready

So surgery is on the 24th which is next friday, and tomarrow makes one week till D day. I have so much to do that i'm almost bogged down by it all. I need to get my house clean in specific my kitchen so that nothing goes "bad" by the time we get home. I've finally made my list of stuff we need to pack but i'm sure its far from completed. I need to do some shopping for me and alena, we both need socks n stuff. I'm waiting for a few things to come in the mail as well and i hope they get here on time for the surgery.

Alena's physical therapist said that her feet are turning in worse then before so we have to make sure we keep shoes on her 90% of the time so that her feet have hte support for her to walk properly and not mess up her legs or hips.

Overtime

I hate that word.... overtime means my husband has to go into work on saturdays, it means my sanity time is gone for the day it.

Today alena isnt being too awful just her normal messy self. I wish she could focus on one thing to do for a while and just stick with it, like play with her toys for more then five seconds each...

Cleaning with a toddler

Cleaning with a toddler is next to impossible. Seriously the moment i put a toy away its like it clicks in her head "hey that looks like fun to play with" and she dumps the whole toy box or whatever to find that one toy. I've been trying to clean the living room which should have only taken me about an hour... and yet its taking me all morning and i'm only about half done... GAH!!!

Alena's heart surgery, preschool and other things

Alena has heart surgery coming up on the 24th of april, i'm not sure how i feel about this. I think she needs the surgery but i've never been given much of an option with any of her other surgeries. We also had her "transition meeting" with the local public preschool for special needs, it went ok there are a few things i dont like about it but i can overcome those. She'll also be going to a private preschool so that should be fun to coordinate. I said something to my hubby yesterday and i think it was really true... sometimes i feel like a personal assistant. i guess its just another title for mommy.