On the mend.

*My original plan was to journal this surgery each day.... but lo and behold, little girl needed her mama by her side 24/7 so there was not much extra time for me.. so this is my re-cap of whole ordeal.

The surgery is over!!!

and I have officially experienced the worst thing as a parent. 

I know, I know, I know that there are many people out there who have it so much worse than me, I acknowledge that with my whole heart!!!!

BUT,

when its my child... and something I've never experienced, having 3 super healthy kids... 

I had some serious motherly issues...

Like literally, I woke up the morning of Payton's surgery, went straight to the bathroom, barfed up my guts cuz I was nervous out of my mind. 

I seriously felt like I was in a little bubble that day... and I was not really me.

It was IN-SANE!!

I was ok (if you consider barfing your guts up and nervous out of your mind "ok";) until Nat started waking her up.. and I saw her... and all I could think was this is the last time I'll see her with a perfect little body. I'm not sure why, but that has been such a big deal for me.. my perfect little 3 year old's body was gonna be officially marked up for the rest of her life! 

and the tears flowed on and off since then....

Once we got to the hospital, and met with the anesthesiologist , The Urologist and the sweet nurses, my nerves calmed a tad, and once my parents, and mother-in-law came, and my dad prayed over Payton, I was feeling pretty calm.

They came in and gave her some meds to get her tired, so we had a good laugh as the meds hit her, and she turned into a loopy mess!!! It was hilarious!!

It was a long hour and a half... I'll just say that. I'm so grateful for the few phone calls from the surgery nurse letting us know how things were going... and it was always going GREAT!! We had some great company to keep us distracted those few hours.

When we saw that hospital bed wheel up, and I see trusty 'ol balley (her blanket) I was sooo relieved!!

But.... then the real fun started. 

It was like newborn baby in the hospital, on steroids. 

Wow!! I had no clue what we were in for. The first day she was sleeping on and off, with the "off" time being her screaming and crying in pain.

Begging us to take the catheter out. Begging us to take her home.

Heart wrenching is a perfect way to describe my feeling that day. There was absolutely nothing I could do to take her pain away, or to make her happy. All I could do was lay in bed with her, hold her as close as I could, and let her know I was there for her

That night was even worse! She got out of bed several times. So I awoke to a delusional little girl, at my sleep deprived bedside, screaming and trying to run (literally) out the door.

She kept saying she wanted to go home!! 

I slept beside her most of the night, but every once in a while I would slip over to the pull out bed to try and get some good sleep. Thats when she would go crazy!!

Like I said, newborn baby on steroids. This little baby could scream louder, move more, and had a little more of an opinion about what was going on in her life. ;)

The next day, I ran home to grab a shower while she napped, and came back to see that Nat had got her out of bed and they were looking at the fishies!! She very much enjoyed that fish tank, and we spent most of our time outside our room looking at the fish tank.

Her little face was swollen from all the IV fluids,

maybe this might be gross to you, but I wanted to get lots of pis of everything that went on so this was her little tail that she trailed around the 3 days we were there.

(Could you imagine walking around with a catheter in?!?! I don't think I could do it!!)

She is such a trooper!!!

Nat worked hard to keep her (bloody) urine out of the tube, into the collection bag.

Once she got out of bed for the day, she did NOT wanna get back in that bed.. so she spent her time on the couch. Doing puzzles, playing with play do, coloring, painting and doing lots of arts and crafts. 

The days were up and down. She was either her happy little self, or she was a zombified angry little being!!! Would not look at you. Would not talk to anyone!! 

It was sad to see her like that. The Dr. said that was the nature of childrens surgery... so it was comforting to know that her behavior was normal. 

We were able to manage her pain rather well. Once she could keep some food/fluids down, she could finally take the more effective pain medicine, and have the morphine for flare ups/bladder spasms.

They're the downer part to this surgery, the bladder spams.... and boy, oh boy did you know when she was having them. I felt so bad for her.

We watched lots of movies, and had lots of special visitors!! Payton's room looked so full LOVE!! It warmed my heart to know my child was so loved by so many... and not only do I have a great supportive family, I also married into a BIG, great, supportive family. :)

Another HUGE Thank you to everyone who prayed for her, texted, called, came and visited, sent goodies to her room, and brought lots of goodies for her!! We Appreciate you all sooo very much!!

It made our time in the hospital much more manageable!!!

By Wednesday, we were sooo ready to go home!! She was missing her brother, sister and cousins, and mama and daddy were quite ready to be in our own bed!!! ;)

6 AM Thursday rolled around, the nurse came in and took the foley out, we rested until Dr. Mciver came in and told us we were going HOME!! Woo Hoo!! 

We were outta there by noon and Payton was so excited to get to walk around with no IV, and no "Tail"

We've been home a few days now, and she is doing SO much better. The nights have still been rough, as she was still having some pain urinating, and has frequent urinating (I.e.... waking 15-20 times in the night to pee) slowly, the pain has gone away, and her urine is once again clear... but she is still peeing like crazy.... and when she's gotta go, she HAS to go right away!! That is the nature of the surgery tho, so we will work through it!!

I am SO proud of her!! Everyone has told us that she will bounce back right away, and although I thought there was no way this was "bouncing back" while we were in the hospital, she is definitely living up to that since we've been home!! She has not missed a beat being with her siblings. She's stayed up with them since the day we got home!!

We are officially off the pain meds, I took her bandage off today and now we await the steri-strips to fall off so we can see the "damage" hopefully I'll be okay when I actually see the scar. ;)