Pollicization Number One Complete!

Saturday, January 21, 2012 7:39 PM, CST

Home Sweet Home!

Well, home away from home I should say.  Annie was discharged from the hospital and is doing so much better!  It was a rough night again from the perspective of no sleep for Annie, me, or my mom.  I think the high doses of steroids and all of the breathing treatments made her extremely edgy and agitated so sleep just wasn't happening for the poor thing (except when Gee was holding her).  She was beyond exhausted!  She took a great 3 hour nap as soon as we got home, so that did her a lot of good!

Her thumb is still looking good from a circulation standpoint (we can only see the very tip of it).  We have to check if often to make sure it is not turning blue.

Post-op was a very traumatic for Annie (and the rest of us).  At one point her airway was so compromised she stopped breathing and turned blue.  The good news is that the PICU doc was in the room when it happened, so she was able to snatch her out of my mom's arms and get her breathing again.  She was about to intubate her when she came back around.  So scary!  Stephen and I were out of the room when all of this happened (which was so sudden) so my poor mom had to deal with this by herself.

  

The PICU docs were amazing, and due to their diligence to get to the bottom of why this happened and why she always has a "rattle" sound to her, several chest x-rays were ordered.  Come to find out her trachea is deviated to the right.  It was apparently this way on her per-op x-ray so it is not something that happened during this surgery.  Not sure why is was not noticed on the first x-ray, but I guess that is beside the point now.  We are not really certain what this means, but we have been advised to see a pulmonologist or ENT doc as soon as we get home.  I have consulted Dr. Google, but I don't really like what he has to say, so I am going to try to stay positive and hope for the best.  It will definitely be interesting to see if her trachea was like this from birth or not (she has had many, many chest x-rays).

Stephen and I had already decided to postpone her second surgery until we got to the bottom of her respiratory issues, so when we were advised not to move forward with any more surgeries until her trachea is evaluated we were totally fine with it.  Annie will still have to come back mid February to have her bandages removed, etc. but it will be a short trip. 

I am happy to report that Alexander is doing fantastic, thanks to Papa (Stephen's dad).  He is so happy and has been such a good boy.  He loves his Papa and is thrilled to be getting the one-on-one attention from him.  We are so thankful to Papa and Gee for interrupting their lives to come help us with all of this.  We really don't know what we would have done without them here!

Annie is a true example of the power of prayer.  She's an amazing little one!  We are hopeful that the next several days will be filled with continued improvements (oh, and lots of sleep for all of us)!!

Thanks for all of the support, it has really helped us through!

Friday, January 20, 2012 9:42 PM, CST

After a really scary afternoon and rough night Annie made drastic improvements throughout the day and was sprung from the PICU tonight. Thank you for the love and prayers!!! They were answered! More details to come but I must sleep first as it has been about 40 straight hours without any (unless you count a 30 min catnap last night).

Thursday, January 19, 2012 9:59 PM, CST

Surgery update

Aunt Katie here, giving a short update.  Anastasia has a left thumb!!!  The blood is circulating well and it looks good from what they can tell when it gets checked.  Today was a roller coaster though as Annie had trouble breathing after she got to the PICU.  Her airways are swollen.  She is getting steroids, and they seem to be helping her breathing to improve.  The sweet little lamb has been very restless and uncomfortable, but she seems to have had some moments of settling down.  Jeanine and Stephen greatly appreciate all the prayers.  Please keep them up!!!  Jeanine and Mom (Sharon) are staying the night at the hospital. Stephen is thankful to have his dad (David) there to help with Alexander, who has been a champ through all the travel and huge change in routine.