Early on the morning of May 8, 2014 we woke up and headed for Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children to get Dani checked in for her surgery. We waited in our room until various people came in to touch base with us and confirm she hadn’t had any food or drink. We also saw the surgeons again who went over everything with us one more time. We also cleaned her one more time with the special wipes they gave us and put her in the hospital gown. Then we had a lot of down time to play and keep her occupied until it was time for surgery.
Then they came in and gave her the “goofy juice” to help her relax and it was time to head down to the surgery floor.
Here we are waiting for all the final items to be taken care of like “what color cast do you want?” and “Here is your beeper.” The anesthesiologist came in to talk to us and tell us it was time to go and that Dani was as cute as she had heard. Mike put Dani on the bed and she grabbed her and said, “I want to carry her in!” We laughed and they were off to start the procedure. We went to the cafeteria and had breakfast then went to the room to grab some stuff to take to the waiting area.
These turtles were in the surgery waiting room and were completely wild! I have never seen turtles act like these did. They were swimming around chasing each other and biting on their shells. If their job was to distract parents, it worked. We were told the surgery was scheduled for 3 hours, but could take up to 5. The time stretched on and on and finally our beeper went off and we headed down to see what they had to say. The nurse told us that all was going well and that they weren’t finished yet so we went back up to the waiting area. Mike and I both tried to get a little sleep while we waited and then at the start of hour 5, our beeper went off again. The surgeons came to talk to us and told us that even though they had to do “the full court press” on her pelvis and hip, it went as well as they could have hoped. We were about to go back to the waiting area when the recovery nurse came out and said that she was already awake so we could come back.
This was Dani in the recovery room after waking up. She looked so sad and she cried the saddest cry which broke our hearts. We spoke to the surgeons and they told us that everything went as great as they hoped and that everything looked good.
We also got a look at the x-rays to see what they had done. Once she was okay we headed up to the room and tried to help make her comfortable. She was clearly confused and upset about the IV in her hand and other wires and tubes attached to her. I thought she would go to sleep fairly quickly, but she just continued to look around confused about what was going on. After a bit Mike decided to go and pick up the girls from Laura’s house so he could bring them back to see her. Dani fell asleep and I settled in with a book when all of a sudden leaves and tree branches started to hit the windows. I looked out and then closed all the shades because the sound had woken her up. The next thing I knew the PA system started beeping and they asked everyone to please stay away from the windows because of the storm. A few minutes later the PA system beeped again and said, “CODE BLACK CODE BLACK Everyone out of their rooms.”
A few minutes later multiple Scottish Rite employees were in the room getting all of Dani’s IV’s and other gear together and then they told me that we were being moved into a big storage closet with the other patients. They rolled us in there and brought chairs for the parents. Several of the other parents said that a tornado had touched down in University Park which was somewhat close to the hospital. I immediately checked my phone for the direction the storm was moving because Mike was on the road on the way to get the girls. From what I could tell he was going the opposite direction of the storm and at that point he had already been to Laura’s and was on the way home with the girls. After 45 minutes they cleared us to go back to the room. Thankfully everyone was safe, but what an adventure.
After a while I was able to get some smiles out of Dani, which made me happy because she had been so sad.
Mike returned with the girls and some dinner for me and Dani perked up a lot when she saw her sisters. They played in the room a bit and then Mike took them home and I settled in on the pull out chair for what I knew would be a long night of interruptions to check Dani’s vital signs. It was a long night, but both of us managed to get some sleep.