The whole story...

Here's the deal on Calleigh. Let's start by saying the surgery to reverse her colostomy was a complete success. She is pooping like a champ even though she is not to thrilled about it. Her precious little tush has never been exposed to poop before so to say she has a diaper rash is an understatement. It's a full time job managing her tiney hiney!

Calleigh went into the hospital on Thursday morning. She was not allowed to eat for 24 hours prior to surgery. Yes, you read that correctly. 24 hours. Because the surgery was on her colon it needed to be empty. I also had to give her the drink people take prior to a colonoscopy to totally empty her. Poor little girl. She handled it like a champ. Never cried the entire time. She was allowed apple juice and she loved it. Kept smacking her lips together for more.

The surgery took about 3 1/2 hours. When I saw her after surgery she was already off the vent and just receiving Oxygen. Perfect. She was brought to the PICU for recovery. By Friday, she was so swollen with fluids she was unrecognizable. Between the IV fluids and the after effects if colon surgery (lots of fluids) she could not even open her eyes from so much Edema. By Saturday, she was worse and her breathing started to be labored. At one point on Saturday she stopped breathing because she just couldn't get air. They bagged her twice to bring her back. The worst day of my life. The fear you feel cannot be put into words. It changes you forever. Not sure I will ever recover from seeing every doctor and nurse from the whole unit around my daugter's bedside trying to get her to breathe. Hopefully, I will never see it again. There was talk of intubating her but they wanted to avoid it if possible. The thought process was once she started passing all the fluids her swelling would go down and she would be back to her old self. She was taking long to expel the extra fluids. By Sunday they gave her a dose of Lasix. Within hours of the shot she looked almost back to normal. By the end of the days she was opening her eyes. She was still on the CPAP machine to help her breathe.

She still had not eaten at this point or pooped. Boy, were we waiting for poop. I never knew one could be so excited for poop! Of course, I came home for about an hour on Monday and she pooped while Frank was there! By Monday night they let me try and feed her 2 oz of food. We put her on just a nasal cannula of Oxygen while she ate and she held her own. By Tuesday morning she was only on the cannula and they took her off completely to see how she did. Well, she did fine and after 24 hours of no apnea episodes we were allowed to come home on Wednedday.

We have been home since Wednesday afternoon and the boys are just starting to get over the fact I was gone for so many days. They keep asking me if I am leaving again. Colin at one point cried to me and said "you and Calleigh can't stay at the hospital forever". It was a tough week for the whole family.

On a happier note the boys think it's wonderful Calleigh poop now come out of her hiney! The fact that my three kids all said to me on different occasions "is Calleigh done with her surgery? Is her stoma gone? Does she poop like us now?" Is comical and sad at the same time. I wish they didn't need to know all those words but am so happy they have such advanced language :) Not many three year olds use the words "colostomy reversal", "stoma", "surgery" . And they actually understand the words. They know their meaning.

So, that's the whole saga. Now we are just in recovery mode.