Looking back (part 2): have a Coke and a smile

I'm sitting here watching the rain fall gently on my windshield, sipping pumpkin latte and using some free Wifi, while my girls are at piano lessons. Two weeks ago, I was doing basically the same thing (although that was a sunny day), when I pulled out my laptop to work on the journal I had started during Leah's back surgery. I had faithfully recorded details of each day for those first days we were in the hospital. On the 6th day, when we went home, I set it aside, as I began busily playing the role of nurse ...too tired to sit down and journal. After about nine weeks, when Leah wasn't feeling so well, and we were sitting home one Friday (one fateful Friday the 13th), I thought I would try to recall and journal a little from each week post-surgery. I was busily typing away when my computer froze up. It wouldn't cooperate for the rest of the day so I set the journal project aside. As it turned out, we ended up in the hospital that night, learning of Leah's diabetes.

Little did I know, until two weeks ago when I tried to open up my journal, that when my computer froze up on that Friday, the 13th, I had lost everything! And no, much to my chagrin, and my computer-savvy husband's disappointment, I had no back-ups. The only reason I didn't cry when I discovered my journal had dissipated into thin air, was because I firmly believed there must be SOME way to get it back. Well...there wasn't.

Thankfully, the events are still in my somewhat recent memory, AND I have lots of emails and Facebook posts to help me fill in the blanks. So, (after that long intro), here is some of what I recall, and part two of "Looking Back"...

We had an exciting, fun-filled first half of summer. Leah and Chloe trimmed Christmas trees for their Grandpa K. in DeMotte and attended a youth mission weekend at Bethel College. Leah also had fun at some graduation parties, took the second segment of Drivers' Education, and turned 16! The day after her birthday we headed to Minnesota for our annual family vacation. We spent two weeks fishing, swimming, biking, and hanging with our cousins.

Leah, our normally quiet child, seemed even more quiet to me than usual. I assumed she was mentally preparing for her upcoming surgery, but in retrospect, she could have been in the early stages of diabetes, with decreased energy due to high blood sugar. There were several ways that Leah did prepare for her surgery. She gave two units of her own blood, got a shoulder-length haircut, and stockpiled puzzle books and DVDs for during her recovery.Finally, the day arrived. We had spent two nights after our vacation at Grandma & Grandpa H's in Lafayette so we could attend a family reunion. This also meant we only had a one-hour car drive to St. Vincent's Hospital in Indianapolis, early that Monday morning, July 15. Leah was registered and prepped for surgery (which included hooking up electrode leads to her head and toes to monitor neural activity during surgery). We hugged and kissed her good-bye, and anxiously sat in the family waiting room for the next couple of hours.

The surgery went more quickly than expected, and the report from Dr. B. was that Leah did great and her back was straight! She was moved to surgery recovery, and eventually to the Peds ICU in Peyton Manning's Children's Hospital (at St. Vincent's), where we were kept entertained (and awake!) with buzzers and beeps all day and night. When Leah woke up, she was mostly concerned with when her brother Jared and sister Chloe were going to arrive, and became a little agitated until they finally got there. She was all smiles and "gentle" hugs for about 5 minutes after they arrived. They picked out a movie to watch together, and as soon as it started, Leah fell back asleep. When Tom and the kids left, she woke up to say good-bye. She also said she loved them, which made them ask: who is this girl and what have you done with our sister?! :) Other than being very thirsty (maybe an indication of things to come), and annoyed by beeping monitors, Leah seemed comfortable the rest of that first day.

Over the next few days, I spent a great deal of time watching Leah sleep. She was on heavy doses of pain medication, at first morphine given through I-V by the push of a button; later, she took Norco and Valium by mouth. By the second day we were moved up to the regular Peds floor, all decked out in Peyton Manning pictures and paraphernalia. As the week progressed, tubes and wires were slowly removed, and by Thursday we were thankful to finally have them all out. They had become a frequent source of frustration every time Leah had to get up and got tangled in her cords and tubes.

The doctor had ordered Leah to sit up and move around. Each day we would sit, stand or walk just a little bit longer or few steps farther. She first sat up and stood next to the bed the day after surgery. We were surprised to see her new height...she had grown about 1 to 1 1/2 inches, and was now taller than her mom!

Prior to surgery, she would tease me about how she was going to be taller than me, and so I expected this to bring a smile to her face. But, after those first smiles in ICU, we had entered the "no-smile zone." The whole week was tiresome for me with lack of sleep, and watching my baby suffer and hurt. But what really got to me was the loss of her smile. I tried everything, from jokes to teasing, to sweet-talking, but I could NOT get a smile. Looking back now, I know she was just really hurting and focused on her pain. She was also a bit out of sorts with all those pain meds in her system. Still, during those few days I felt that I had lost a big part of my little girl.

That smile finally came on Saturday, the day we were hoping to go home. She had finally gotten her appetite back and was ordering food for lunch. She was thrilled to see that she could order Coke, one of her favorite drinks. Later that afternoon, as we were taking our walk around the hospital corridor, she asked, "Mom, if I get to go home today, do you think I can get a Coke for the car?" I replied, "Honey, if you can go home, you can have whatever you want!" Finally...a smile! An hour or so later, out of the blue she took me up on my offer by saying, "Can I have some 'Little Debbies' too?"

We did get to go home that evening, and before we were even out of Indy, we stopped at a gas station for a Coke and Little Debbies. After which we stopped at CVS for her prescriptions, and then Starbucks for my cafe mocha. Chloe, who had spent the week at her grandparents in Lafayette, joined us for the three-hour ride home. That night and for the next few weeks, we all took Leah's comfort very seriously, and were often rewarded with glimmers of that precious smile. I'll never take that smile for granted again.

Yet to come...Looking back (part 3), including before and after photos! Stay tuned...

FamilyLinda HanstraOctober 18, 2013Family, Spinal Fusion, Scoliosis2 Comments