Bradin's Surgery

On October 17th, Bradin had surgery to remove the growth on his tongue. It was an outpatient surgery scheduled for early in the morning. Bradin did great! (I was the one freaking out! I HATE hospitals and the dang hospital cribs!) He was really good for the doctors.


They gave him some medicine while he was still with us so it wouldn't be so traumatic taking him away. He got really loopy - it was funny to watch.

When it was over, he drank his juice in one quick sip and wanted to go home. They suggested soft stuff for him to eat - ice cream for lunch, and mac and cheese for dinner. Later that same day he was back at home running around creating havoc on a sugar high.


Now to help you understand why I was the one freaking out! EVERY one of my kids have had surgery, and we have spent some extended time in the hospital. It seems that those memories and feelings are not as far buried as I thought they were. This experience reminded me of the others and I had to really work to pull myself together this time around.

Tayler
Tayler had a hydroceale operation when he was 3 1/2. He was in the dang hospital crib! (Sorry no pictures!)

Ryan
Ryan had his tonsils and adenoids removed in an effort to help with his allergies and cold induced asthma. He was 8 when the surgery happened. In the picture, they have given him some medicine to settle him down before they took him in for surgery. He is flyin' high!


Shelly
Shelly was born with a cleft palate in the soft tissue at the back of her throat. It was something that was missed at the hospital, we discovered it at home when she was 3 days old (on THE ORIGINAL September 11th). On that morning, Shelly was still asleep so I got into the shower. Before I could get out she was awake and screaming. Norm was holding her and saw the gaping hole at the back of her throat. He called the boys in and looked at their throats. He is telling me (while I'm in the shower) - "Kris you have to see this, she has a hole in her throat". I got out of the shower and looked at her and knew IMMEDIATELY what it was (I was a Child Development major in college). RECAP-new hungry baby, no sleep, September 11th, cleft palate = OVERWHELMED!!!!
The doctors wanted to wait until she was 9 months old and bigger before they would perform surgery. It was a HARD 9 months! Shelly had a difficult time eating - one of the doctors compared it to sipping through a straw without closing your mouth around the straw completely. She didn't have any suction. The hole was open to the area that went to her nose that she breathed through. We had to get special bottles and squeeze the milk into her mouth. It took a long time to feed her, and for a while she wasn't gaining any weight - she was losing weight. So we were pretty much feeding her every minute of the day (in the pictures you can see that this method worked because we eventually fattened her up a bit:)) Because the hole was open to her nose, the milk would go into the hole and come out her nose, which would cause her to choke. She was a scary baby to take care of! She choked VERY easily. When she started choking, we would have to use the "nose-sucker" to clear out whatever she was choking on. We had nasal aspirators EVERYWHERE - each car, each room of the house, my purse, the diaper bag!! During this time, I was still working - so my mom took care of her during the day while I was teaching (I finished out the year and quit teaching during the day so I could be at home). She got held a lot, because it was scary to set her down. When she was on her back she seemed to choke more. Every time she made a noise we were checking her to make sure she wasn't choking. She slept next to me, in my bed, so that I could hear her (we didn't sleep much - and when we did, it wasn't the deep restful sleep!) It was a tough 9 months!

After the surgery, once again - the dang hospital crib! She had to wear those dang things on her arms for several days so that she couldn't get her hands or anything else into her mouth (like she is doing in the following picture) and mess up the stitches.

Norm looks tired!!

Extended time in the hospital
I think that this story helps explain better why I was freaking out at Bradin's surgery.
When Tayler was 2 1/2 -the exact age of Bradin- he broke his femur bone and had to be in traction -at the same hospital as Bradin's surgery- for 17 days in one of those dang hospital cribs. There was a lot going on in my life at the time - we were in the process of purchasing a new house, we starting packing up our apartment to prepare for the move, Ryan had just been born and was six weeks old, I had just started back to work, and my mom had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

So here is the story:
We came out to see the progress of our new house (which was a weekly tradition). Then we went to our friend's house for a birthday party. When we got to our friend's house, Tayler went into the back yard and started playing with a basketball. Tayler was back there by himself and we were inside the house, in an adjoining room with the sliding door open. We didn't see what happened. We assummed he fell somehow over the basketball. Our friend - whom we'll call Brian - looked out the door and said 'Norm, you'd better come here'. At this point, it had just happened and Tayler wasn't crying yet. Norm went outside and picked Tayler up and brought him into the house. He was starting to cry and you could tell that he was hurt. We thought that he had dislocated his knee or something. We got directions to the nearest hospital and gathered our stuff up and went to the emergency room. At the hospital, they told us that Tayler had a spiral fracture of his femur bone (which is common in child abuse cases - and YES we WERE interviewed by CPS) and that we would need to be admitted to the hospital immediately and Tayler would be put into traction. (Of course - in one of those DANG hospital cribs - I think this is where the HATE of hospital cribs originates!) That means he was flat on his back with bandages on both legs with ropes hooked to his legs, with weights hanging off of the ropes. Can you imagine a 2 1/2 year old flat on his back for any length of time? We were 30 miles from our apartment, and we didn't even have a change of clothes. We basically moved into the hospital.

We decorated the room up. I took all the pictures out of my wallet and put them facing toward Tayler, on the plastic covering on the top of the crib, so that Tayler could look up and see them. We had a count going on. I would hang up a new paper with a number on it to keep track of how many days we were in the hospital.

They wouldn't feed me in the hospital. So we got some snacks to keep in the hospital room, and I would eat a little bit off of Tayler's tray, and then Norm would bring me food when he got back from work.

After a while, they got upset that Ryan (six weeks old) was in the room. They told me that he couldn't be in the room at all (they had seen Ryan sleeping with me in a cot during the night and gotten nervous). I didn't know what I was going to do. Norm had to work. I had to be there with Tayler, and I had a 6 week old nursing baby that I had to take care of too. I begged and cried and they relented. They allowed Ryan to be in the room during the day - if he was kept in a baby bassinet. But he could NOT be in the room during the night. After more crying, they allowed us to stay in the family suite (a bed and a bathroom) on the same floor of the hospital. That meant that I would get Ryan to sleep and Norm would take him to the family suite and they both would sleep, while I was sleeping in a cot next to Tay and taking care of him. Then when Ryan would wake up, Norm would call me in the middle of the night and we would switch. He would walk the baby up to me in Tayler's room, and hand Ryan off. I would go to the the family suite to feed Ryan and sleep. Norm would try and sleep a little longer in the cot while taking care of Tayler before going to work for the day.

I had to get a sub for my class (that ended up teaching the rest of the year).

Our families pitched in! They brought us clothes and food and they visited (it's amazing how LONG the day is when you are stuck in bed in the hospital - visits were GREATLY appreciated!) My mom and mother-in-law oversaw the packing up our whole apartment while we were in the hospital.

We signed the final paperwork for our new house in the hospital.

Norm and I took a day away from the hospital and packed our stuff from the apartment into the moving truck and unloaded it in the new house. This was getting toward the end of the hospital stay, and by this time the bandages on Tayler's legs had rubbed him raw so he was on morphine around the clock and still in pain.

This is a picture of us on the day we left the hospital. We were SOOOOOOOO excited to be leaving. When we left the hospital (after 17 days), we went home to our new house.


Before we left the hospital, Tayler was put into a hip-spica cast. It was not fun either! He wore the hip-spica cast for 6 weeks. He couldn't fit into his car seat or stroller. We couldn't put pants on him.

We had to transport him everywhere in a wagon. To go anywhere we had to take both cars - Tayler in the front seat of my car, and the wagon in the back of Norm's truck. He was still in diapers, so we had to tuck the diaper up into the cast - unfastened. Diapering was not fun - if the diaper overflowed it went up into the cast - so we had to stay up on diapers.

The next Sunday after we got out of the hospital was fast Sunday - and Ryan's blessing day. We came into our brand new ward with a new baby, dragging our son half-naked in a wagon, wearing a shirt and a hip-spica cast. With our enormous families (on both sides) - all in tow. What an entrance!! We don't believe in doing things half-way!

Near the end of the cast, Tayler figured out how to get around. He could walk on the cast and slide down the stairs and climb up them. The cast was TRASHED after 6 weeks!


What an experience! The whole experience with Bradin caused me to think back to the other surgeries and our stay in the hospital. Some days I think back at some of the trials that we have faced and I don't know how we survived! It was tough at the time! We learned how precious a simple phone call can be, we learned how a visit can brighten your whole day, we learned to depend on each other better. There were MANY other things that we learned. We were reminded how blessed we are - to have the love and support of our family and friends. We were also blessed because in each situation the outcome could have been so much worse. Something that started during this time was a saying that has become more familiar since - 'We don't have it as bad as Joseph Smith did'. Which reminds us to stop complaining and deal with life. And, despite our situation, Heavenly Father knows what is happening to us and he loves us. We just need to endure and remember that those things that don't kill you will make you stronger.


"Thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.....Thou art not yet as Job;.....know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good" -Doctine and Covenatns 121-122