Muscle Biopsy

Leah had her deep muscle biopsy done in January. They didn't give her anything to take the edge off until she was out of my sight. Apparently when the doors closed after we said goodbye, Leah wigged out. The anesthesiologist said she put up a good fight and refused to enter the room or get on the table. I don't know how they finally got her in, but the hand shaped bruises all over her upper arms the next day gave some indication. When she came out of surgery her oxygen dipped and she required some support. Because of this, they kept her 24 hours for observations. Of the 24 hours, we spent from 7 am to 10 pm in pre op and post op. Apparently when the are out of rooms in the hospital you get to just hang out in post op. This is less than favorable as post op is a very noisy, bright, hustle and bustle place. People come and go constantly, nurses holler orders to each other across the room of 50 patients in varying degrees of anesthesia. Kids wake up disoriented, nauseous and cranky. As soon as they settle in, they are discharged and you start over again. There are no rooms, you are all in there together. It's less than favorable conditions, but it could be worse, I know.

Leah wasn't allowed to have anything to eat or drink since the night before so by 2 o'clock she was starving and Popsicles weren't cutting it. I finally convinced a nurse to look the other way while daddy smuggled in some McDonalds for her. In the 15 hours of waiting we had at least 7 different nurses assigned to us, our favorite being a male who reminded us of a close friend. He had a dry sense of humor and Leah wasn't 100 percent sure about him but enjoyed the banter. She rarely complained of pain, but when I had to take her to the bathroom it was major drama (see: all out hissy fit, including punching mommy in the head over and over). I insisted that the nurses give her something for the pain and one of the nurses went to find something. When they returned they gave her a medicine cup and commented that this was "all they could find". When I asked about what it was, they told me Tylenol. Not prescription strength with codeine, but good old OTC Tylenol. I distinctly remembered the surgeon stating that Leah would have strong pain killers to go home on, so I found this odd.

By 8 o'clock there was no sign of a room although we had shut down the day surgery post op room and transferred to a different building's post op room. Leah's pain level was fine while she was laying flat in bed, but was horrible when she was forced to move. I pushed the pain medicine issue with the nurses and they finally decided they would check with the doctor. Indeed she was to be getting Lortab, not OTC Tylenol. BIG difference. By 9 o'clock we found out we were getting a room and by 9:30 the stars had aligned and it had been cleaned and we were ready to go. Then the nurse discovered Leah was supposed to have labs drawn at 7 o'clock and oops they forgot. We would have to wait for that to be done before we transferred so that the nurses wouldn't get in trouble. By this point I was exhausted and not very happy with our "stay" so far. We eventually got to our room, had labs drawn and got some real medicine. We both slept as best we could. They discharged us the next day around lunch time and we were on our way.

Leah spent the first day being carried around and perfected the "Leah shuffle", where she would wiggle her hips back and forth while sliding her feet across the floor to get around. It seemed more difficult to chase the pain since it had already been out of control the day before and she dealt some with the anxiety of pain. Some sweet friends let us borrow crutches and a wheel chair and that made things so much easier for her. Within a week she was getting around pretty well. She has had an abscess that has been a real persistent pain, but otherwise she's all healed up. She has a pretty dark scar on her thigh, but she is getting around as good as always. We are glad to have that all behind us.