Surgery Update

Cassidy's surgery went well. Our little girl was hilarious after they gave her the sedative before taking her off to surgery. We told her they were going to give her some "goofy juice" to make her feel funny. I asked how long it would take to work and the nurse said about 10 minutes. Within 2 minutes of the nurse leaving the room, Cassidy started roaring like a lion and thought it was the funniest thing ever.... Jeff and I thought it pretty funny too. I wish I had it on video for all of you to see, but we didn't have the camera with us.

The procedure went well, and the toughest part of the day was when Cassidy woke up post surgery but was still to groggy to console. She was PISSED and ripped the pulse monitor and oxygen monitor off, and made a really good attempt at the IV before we had to pin her arms to her side. Once we got her to drink some juice and got the IV out, she fell asleep in Daddy's arms, slept the whole way home and for a couple hours after that. When she woke up, she ate some ice cream and started jumping up and down.

(No, we didn't lock her in the crate post surgery...

she decided it was great fun to hang out in there with Bilbo who was taking a nap on Baxter's blanket.)

She alternated between sleepy, codeine Cassidy and her normal self for the rest of the day. By Saturday morning, she was her normal self and was off the codeine by Sunday morning.

Unfortunately, she came down with another cold the following week. At her post surgery appointment 3 weeks later, her ears looked great, but she had developed bronchitis again. So we are back to NEB treatments with pulmicort and xopenex 2X each day.

Medical Update: Ear infection Season Has Returned.

It's that time of year again. Cassidy's had two ear infections in the last 5 weeks, or one nasty one that just didn't quit, resulting in 5 days of azithromycin, 10 days of another antibiotic which I can't remember the name of, and then 2 antibiotic shots 24 hours apart.

We started seeing a new pediatrician after the first round of antibiotics. We really liked our doctor, but just couldn't take the wait time anymore. We were consistently waiting around 1 hour past our appointment time for our well visits... completely ridiculous. Anyway, our new doctor is amazing. It's a night and day difference compared to the other doctor. He is so much more thorough, and has actually made me question the care she was given previously.

Our new doc said that it's time for us to see an ENT for Cassidy's ears. Our appointment was Monday and it went well. We practiced opening our mouth for the doctor before we went, and after the doctors assistant said "There! That was easy!" following looking in her first ear, Cassidy continued to proclaim, "EASY!" each time they did something to her. She whined and fussed a bit when they dug the wax out of her ears to get a good look inside, but overall she did great.

The diagnosis: Her hearing is fine, but she's got yellow fluid built up in both ears so its time for surgery. We are having tubes inserted and her adenoids removed on November 26. The adenoid removal should help prevent the sinus infections, and the tubes should help with the ear infections. It's an outpatient surgery which should last about 30 minutes, and we should be able to take her home after 3 hours or so. Recovery is 3-5 days.

In the mean time, our new pediatrician agreed that it was time to take Cassidy off the neb treatments and see if she still needs them. Our last day of treatment was last Wednesday. We're hoping for the best.

Tinkerbell Goes Country

True to Cassidy form, she insisted on wearing her boots with her Tinkerbell costume for trick-or-treating! It was a bit cool out, so we threw on a tshirt under her costume and headed out to collect some candy.

We made our way down a few blocks of our neighborhood to collect some candy and see the decorations. For over a week we had been making a nightly walk to visit the "purple spider", the ghosts, and the skeletons (which she had to shake hands with) that decorated the lawns of the houses down the block. We also made our way a few times to visit the giant (seriously, as tall as the house) black cat that was often blown up around bed time.

Papa handed out our candy on the corner (for some bizarre reason, in our neighborhood the kids just go around the outside instead of down each street) while Nana walked along with us. Cassidy was a bit overwhelmed with all the people on the street but caught on quickly when she saw that there was candy involved. She did really well in spite of getting a late start because of dinner, a meltdown while putting on the costume (she couldn't decide if she should be tinkerbell or last year's lamb), and repeated requests for mommy to carry her.

We are still eating something from the pumpkin every night for "chocolate eye", though we have run out of the "good candy" and are resorting to tootsie rolls in various shapes and flavors.