Arabella’s Stoma Surgery

What a day! I am exhausted and grateful. Arabella had her final trach related surgery ever, today. What a relief to close that chapter in her life. Although I will say that caring for a trach baby was so much less stressful the 2nd time than the 1st time. I was able to relax a bit more because I had all of the experience from Aidan and I knew what to expect. I also noticed that the night before the surgery I was a ball of nerves but when it came time to send her back for the surgery I was completely at ease. That was a 1st for me. It only took a good 15-20 surgeries for me to get to that point!

This was the quickest, smoothest procedure ever. It was so quick that I barely had a chance to take pics or video. Here are a few from our morning.

5:45 am~ Arrived at Joe Dimaggio Children’s Hospital

6:45 am~ Killin’ time playing with some toys.

Pretty much every single nurse and doctor asked what happened to her cheek. It’s a mosquito bite.

7:30 am~ Starting to feel the affects of the medication. She was so cute. When she started getting really loopy she giggled and giggled. Then, she became super affectionate, kissing me on the cheek over and over. Then, she got grouchy and irritable and was insisting that I put her down even though her body was almost totally limp from the medicine. All this happened in like 5 minutes.

(I look as tired as I felt:)

Here’s a short video of her starting to get grouchy. It was super short because she kept trying to get the camera.

7:40 am~ Off to the operating room. Got to give her a kiss before she rolled away.

8:35 am~ Out of surgery. When I went back to the recovery room a nurse was holding her and Arabella was screaming and kicking. A very common reaction to coming out of the anesthesia. The second the nurse handed her to me I snuggled her and she was out within seconds.

Sweet baby girl was such a trooper. She chugged her apple juice at 9:30 and at 9:40 she was discharged. I was blown away at how fast everything was. We were home by 10:00!! That has never happened before. The doctor did give me the option of staying over night and I quickly declined that offer:)

Arabella is doing so great. She bounced back ridiculously fast. She threw up a couple of times and then was ready to eat, run and play!

Happy just poppin’ her cheerios!

We are so happy with how well everything went today. We are hoping that her neck will heal quickly, without any infections. Soon you will not even be able to tell that she ever had a trach. Can’t wait to see how good it looks!