February 16, 2016 - Stage 2

Jared's time off is limited, he was home sick two days last week so we decided that since this surgery was outpatient, there was no reason for him to come sit in a waiting room all day.  We recruited Grandma Larsen to join us.

We pulled her out of bed at 6:30 am and hit the road.  Of course we were traveling during morning rush hour so we were glad we had given ourselves a little bit of extra time.

Fasting was much easier this go around.  It helped that she only had to wait until 10:30 instead of 2:30.  Not one complaint this time.

She was much happier overall this time.  I think it helped that she knew what to expect and it was familiar.  

Her dad has been teasing her about all the ways that Dr. Muntz was going to pop out her ear...like hitting her really hard on the opposite side of the head or sticking an air gun in her good ear and filling it up until it pops.  Grandma was full of jokes today too.  Things like...what to do if she woke up and realized that we forgot to take her home with us or what if Dr. Muntz accidentally rearranged her face instead of fixing her ear.

We were pretty excited when we got the same pre-op Nurse Practitioner that we had last time.  Mrs. Purple got her name because of her stethoscope, Mr. Purple.  Kambri was excited to tell her all about it and it made her day.

While we were in the second waiting room, they brought her a doll that she got to color & take along for surgery.  She named her Ella.  The blue hair is my favorite.

At 10:31 am I signed the last documents and walked her down the hall to once again send her off into the all too familiar operating room.   

Last time she chose Strawberry scented anesthesia.  This time she chose Cotton Candy and reported that it was even better.

They told us that surgery would be 60-90 minutes so when they paged me after almost 2 hours I was relieved that they were finally finished.  It was the OR Nurse, he reported that things weren't going quite as planned and that they would need another hour.  That hour was the longest of the 3 hour wait.  An old friend walked in to the waiting room during that time so we spent some time catching up which helped to pass the time.

Finally Dr. Muntz walked in and I could've kissed his face.  He reported that things went well.  There was a minor complication with the skin graft (from just below her panty line) and they had to do it twice, making it twice the size as expected but we can deal with that.

We finally made it to the recovery room just as she was coming out of the anesthesia.  Her pain level was high and her oxygen levels dropped low.  They gave her every drop of pain meds she was allowed.  Once we got her pain under control her oxygen levels came back up to normal.  I had in my mind that because this was a less invasive & outpatient surgery that it would be easier, I was wrong.  It's been a really rough day for the poor girl.

My heart sank when I saw her ear.  What have we done?!  I turned to my mom and asked, "what if I hate it?".  Then the nurse proceeded to explain that the ear is folded & stitched in half right now, kind of rolled up like a Cinnamon Roll, which relieved my anxiety.  I was nervous that this was our end result and I was thinking oh man, we should've just left it alone.  I felt much better after I understood that.

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It took us a little longer than expected but we were finally ready to go home.  She was feeling nauseous which made all of us anxious for a long car ride home.  Luckily she fell asleep just outside of Salt Lake and slept all the way home.

It was a hard day for her daddy.  It was a lot harder for him to be away than he expected.  He won't be missing any more surgeries.  Lesson learned.  He greeted her with a bouquet of Frozen balloons.  He knows the way to her heart.