Post-Surgery Update

Julie came through this morning's surgery like the strong little girl that she is. When we first arrived, she kept saying "go hospital," but she didn't panic or even get anxious. She even handled having her vitals checked without crying! Then they gave her some medication to relax her (good stuff!). It made her laugh and giggle and move in slow motion, which is kind of funny when she wanted to use sign language. Here she is in loopy-land:


The surgery itself lasted about 2.5 hours (longer than expected), during which I got to visit with a good friend and neighbor who had a baby via emergency c-section on Saturday. Having her there in the same hospital almost made me feel like we were at home. Her baby is so adorable and perfect. It's a true blessing that he is here since there was a knot in his cord and the cord was wrapped around his neck twice. It was really amazing holding him. It's always hard to fathom how small newborns are until you hold one again. Wow.

Back to surgery. The surgeon came out to talk to us while Julie was in recovery. He explained that the tumor had grown back aggressively and it was really big (relatively speaking...this is all happening in a very small part of the body). It was basically spread all throughout her middle ear. He even had to use a needle tip to scrape it out of a teeny tiny crevice. Unfortunately, the tumor had eroded the bony casing of her facial nerve, two out of the three delicate ear bones that help conduct sound to the inner ear, and half the eardrum. The doctor reconstructed the eardrum using muscle from the incision site. He also removed the ear canal wall to reduce the chance that the tumor will return. A year from now he will insert prosthetic ear bones, allowing Julie to hear normally again. For now, she will continue to suffer hearing loss in that ear. We asked about hearing aides and we're going to pursue it more when we see the doctor in 2 weeks. We also learned that Julie's recent CT scan showed the beginning of a similar condition in her right ear, which means she will need surgery on it too. The doctor said we'll let the left ear heal first, but we'll probably be back in surgery before Christmas. We really love our surgeon and we feel so blessed to have him. He took a picture during surgery and gave us a copy to keep. He even drew diagrams on the back to help us understand what was going on inside. He was really surprised to find such a serious situation in there, which is saying something coming from such an experinced surgeon. If anyone can help Julie, he can.

One other interesting thing came up during our consultation. The surgeon looked right at us and said "if she had stayed in China without any surgical intervention she would be deaf." That's scary to think about (not because we think deafness is scary, but because it could have been prevented). He also said that we've made a positive impact on her life by adopting her. As much as we avoid saying that kind of thing in the adoption community (we don't adopt to "save" a child), I guess it seems clear to him from a medical point of view. In fact, if the tumor had been left to grow unchecked, it would have eventually invaded her brain, leading to all kinds of outcomes I can't even bear to entertain. It is sad to think that all of this could probably have been avoided if she had received complete medical care from birth. It doesn't help to dwell on that though. I'm just grateful to God that we received our Julie when we did and that we are in such good hands now. (One last note: our surgeon is Asian-American, but I'm not sure of his cultural background.)

Back to surgery, again. Julie kind of freaked out waking up from the anesthesia, so they came to get me and let me hold her. She settled down somewhat but continued to protest the bandage over her IV as well as the pulse-ox clip. She definitely does not like the bandage around her head, but she has to keep it on for now. We set up our tent in the living room so that we can sleep with her to make sure she doesn't pull it off. We just gave her a dose of Tylenol with Codeine and we're waiting for sleep to come. We also changed the dressing over her ear because it had completely soaked through with blood. I remember the same thing happening last time we had this surgery, but I was a lot more nervous about it then. I guess a couple years of parenting helps! And for the record, Melody was absolutely amazing today. She tagged along and did SO well. She only cried when Julie was really upset, which is understandable. We made it home for lunch and nap, and now Melody is sleeping in her crib. (She was up most of last night and we're praying it doesn't happen again tonight...please!!!)

Here is Julie post-op:

The DVD player saved the day yet again. It really helped her settle down.

Same pose, different setting: home!

Just before we changed the bandage.

Tent!