Ready to be Done

Ivy had her catheterization yesterday, and we are so glad its over. We were stuck at the hospital for over 12 hours yesterday for what was supposed to be a relatively short procedure. The doctors told us that the procedure itself would be 2 or 3 hours, and then of course there is prep time, recovery time etc. All leading us to a discharge time of about 5:30 pm. Well they were a little off on their estimates. The procedure ended up taking 5 hours and the recovery time was SUPER long. Apparently they couldn't get her to stop bleeding, which happened with her very first surgery as well. They had to spend an extra hour getting it to stop.

Meanwhile, Scott and I are in the waiting room expecting the doc to come out and speak to us any minute (we'd recieved a call in the waiting room saying he would be out momentarily), but he never came out. I had such a horrible feeling of dread waiting there for him. Where could he be? What is going on? Is she okay? Finally, after about an hour Scott asked the receptionist to find out what was happening, so she did. That's when we found out about the bleeding, but she said that they just got it to stop and that the doc would definately be out in a moment. I was SO RELIEVED.

So Dr. Womack finally came out and explained everything that went on, and said things had gone well (up until the excessive bleeding), and they got all the information that they needed to be able to proceed to the next step (surgery). Hooray! We then headed to recovery to be re-united with our little trooper. She was swollen, tired, and quite grumpy, but she looked good. We waited and waited to be released, and waited some more. Ivy couldn't pee.........we tried scaring it out of her by saying we wouldn't be able to go home.........she finally wet, and I mean WET! Then the doc had to do another quick echo, followed by another LONG discussion. More waiting......and finally at 8:15 or so we signed the release papers and walked out the door. Thankful to be done!

So thanks again Russell and Collette, you guys are amazing. Seriously, we owe you big time!

Anyway, it looks like surgery will be taking place sometime in early to mid june. I know it sounds wierd, but we can hardly wait. I am nervous of course, but I am so sick of this looming over head. I just want to be finished (for a while anyway). Finished with the nurses, physical therapists, dietitions, social workers, doctors, doctors appointments, endless paperwork, and most of all, the mountain of bills. After this surgery, we will still have all those things for about a month, but then most of them will either diminish substantially, or go away all together. I will have no problem giving them up!