stressin out

I'm struggling inside myself today thinking about Kiki's surgery. It's supposed to be simple, but I don't care who you are, as a mom, surgery for your 5 year old child (child period for that matter) is never "simple". It's anything but. The last "simple" procedure she had landed her an airlift trip and a 4 day stay in the ICU at UCLA. It was no one's fault, it was just her body. She's been sick for so long that when the doctor's did something to try and relieve her body of some stress, it freaked out! It was so used to being one way for so long, it just reacted horribly to the surgery.

Don't think this morbid of me, but here is the last time I saw my daughter in the hospital.... On a ventilator, strapped to her bed, barely coherent

3 days later after having the vent taken off, and realizing mama was there with her instead of some strangers sweet voice telling her to "hold still it'll be OK."



Trying to wake up enough to smile for Daddy, but not quite able to get over her surroundings.




Now like most multiple moms, my kids were really premature and really little, so we are no beginners to the whole "ICU and tubes" thing. But That was 5 years ago that she was all wired up to machines.

I can not begin to tell you how scared I was to see her that way. No one is ever prepared to see your child turn blue and stop being able to breathe on their own. She was retracting so badly that you could hear her chest "pop" when she'd breathe out. One minute we were in a ped's room talking to nurses, I took a friend home and left Quincy there with her, only to come back 10 minutes later and find an ER response team in her room surrounding her. They hooked her up to a machine that was not a ventilator but did about the same thing, it forced air into her lungs and caused her lungs to stay open at all times. The poked her several times to get blood gases from her. They gave her breathing treatments, and nothing seemed to work. So they decided to airlift her to UCLA to the ICU. Unfortunately, being that she has the neurological issues that she does...she's sensitive to "humming or buzzing" sounds and to being lifted in the air. Needless to say she panicked and they had to land back at AV and inti bate her before transporting her. She pulled her oxygen off, her iv loose, took off her safety straps and began kicking the window of the helicopter in the air! All while telling the nurse on board "you shut up!!" (sorry, I giggled at that because to her "shut up" is a cuss word, so she thought she was being this little tough girl) When they pulled her out of the helicopter, she was so worked up that she started losing oxygen fast and was becoming tachycardic and ended up having to be inti bated. Her oxygen levels were below 20 at some points.

They finally got her to UCLA where we sat and waited for her to be able to breathe on her own again. It was horrible. She would wake up, and her hands were strapped to the bed to keep her from pulling anything out. She would just cry if she recognized us, and would just keep saying "I want you mommy"...how do you explain to a 5 year old that mama can't hold you or fix it right now? I can't stop your pain, I can't even hold you yet. But I'm standing right here watching them poke you and change you, and give you loopy medicine. I was absolutely helpless and I hated it!! I am the "go to " person at home, as are most mommies....I'm not looking forward to another possible torturous time for her. I cringe at the thought of anything harming her again. But she has to have this surgery to help reduce some of the pain she deals with on a daily basis. It's better for her in the long run, but mentally draining for me for now.

I've been on here a lot today, but today is one of those weird days when you think about all kinds of stuff, but can't really talk about it...so you blog about it. I never really know who reads these anyway unless someone leaves me a comment,so really sometimes it's just like writing something to the great abyss just for the sake of getting it out of my head and some where else.