Jingle All The Way

Part 1: 

Two weeks later and we find ourselves back in a familiar position. A place where the staff knows our names and have seen Hazel grow up over the last 4 years...where we have started to learn about as much about the nurses home lives as they know about our own.  It’s nice to know and be known to some extent I guess.  Exactly one year ago we were here for Hazel’s 4th cornea transplant and today she is having a less severe surgery in an effort to make that same struggling eye better.  

It’s 9:30 at the moment and she has been in the O.R. for close to 2 hours...a longer wait than we are used to...

Hazel is growing and maturing with every visit here. She is learning how to cope and she communicates better than ever about how she feels...what would make her comfortable...what her options are in any situation. Today when it was time to go back to the OR, the anesthesiologist and OR nurse found out that Hazel likes to sing Jingle Bells and likes to find that ornament on our tree. She didn’t want to be held and didn’t want to walk so she chose to sit on the rolling bed with her toys...as they rolled down the hallway with jingle bells playing on the nurses phone :)

More updates soon...

Part 2: Post Op and Beyond

It's the day after surgery and things have settled down.  Shortly after I wrote and published Part 1 of this post we were met in the waiting room by Hazel's surgeon who gave us a brief reports and brought us back to sit with Hazel in post-op.

The procedure itself was the first time we have done anything in the area of her retina in the back of the eye.  The membrane that was clinging to the area was multi-layered and took a lot of diligent work to remove --  in the words of Dr Spencer, it was a "tedious" surgery to complete...hence, the time.  What could not be seen until some of these layers were gone was that the retina had actually detached near the base and surgically placed back into position.  We were not expecting the retina to be detached because it never showed in her exams under anesthesia, but the positive view of this is that we got her back in for surgery so soon and now we can work towards resolving it.  

Hazel took longer than normal to come out of the anesthesia but I think we also came back sooner than we normally do.  As per usual, the nursing staff was amazing and always takes care of our girl.  It's always a mystery about how Hazel will react when she wakes up, I think this time around we got the sweetest...calmest....most reasonable version of post-op Hazel that we've ever seen :)  She was still barking out orders of who could sit on the bed and who should stand, when she wanted Cheerios or when chocolate milk was in order...but I'll take bossy over upset any day.  

Mom and Patient

This part might be more info that everyone needs....but, well...whatever...I'll make up for it with a cute picture below.  Hazel threw up in the car for the first time following any kind of trip to the surgery center.  Luckily it didn't end up being a big deal and the most likely cause is that Dad and Mom let her go a little crazy on the amount of chocolate milk after being down that long.  Oh well, at least we got her car seat cleaned out in the process.

A few hours later she was back to her old self...eating and watching tv.

Six weeks from now (early January) we will go back in for an EUA to see how effective these measures were and to remove the sutures in her eye.  Until then, not expecting to post many updates.  

Thanks to everyone who is following Hazel, commenting, liking, praying or reaching out to our family.  We are truly lucky and blessed to have the support that we have and it is just as meaningful now as it has ever been.

If I don't talk to you sooner, have a wonderful December and Christmas season.