Abigail and Daddy had a pretty low key night in the hospital. We weren't sure what time to expect the surgery because she wasn't the first one scheduled and we ended up having a lot longer to wait than we were originally told. Poor girl couldn't eat all day, which made it harder!
They suggested I get her hair out of the way so they would hopefully have to shave less of it, so we started with pigtail braids. They didn't last long enough.
Already we were being overwhelmed with kindness and support from friends and family. We were so much in shock we couldn't even think of what we needed, but people just stepped in! Meals were brought to the hospital AND our house for the next few days and countless people stopped by both the house and the hospital with gifts for Abigail. Kelly and Mom completely took things into their own hands, which again was awesome because I couldn't think straight, and booked a flight for Mom to come out on Saturday. Candace took charge of things at home again so Andrew and I could be at the hospital all day. It was a long, anxious day.
Technology to try to distract from hunger!
And a puppy present from her nursery teacher/my visiting teacher Sister Odell.
Naps to pass the time.
A heaven-sent nurse told us about the play room near the pediatric ICU so we went for a walk!
Abigail had a blast! They plugged off the IV so she was unhooked from everything and could just play!! And play she did! We stayed in this room until they called us to prepare for the surgery. Really helped to calm all our nerves. We were in the play room from about noon to 2:30.
Notice the pigtail braids didn't make it....
It was getting late enough in the day, we were worried they were going to postpone the surgery until another day.
Talking on her "phone" (a toy hand mixer....).
She loved Andrew pushing her for fast rides in this car! Back and forth and back and forth!
Bowling!
Finally we got word that they were ready for us! We tried for regular pigtails after that. They took us down to the surgery holding rooms where we sat for about an hour.
The smiles didn't last long. Abigail was very sad - hungry, confused, and nervous about what was going to happen.
Finally they were ready and gave her sleepy meds through the IV so they could take her back. The next three minutes were the worst of my life. They said with the meds she wouldn't be aware when we left (to go the surgery waiting room). She really tried to fight the medicine, though, struggling to stay awake.
As they started to wheel her bed out, she opened her eyes and tried to reach for me, saying, "Mommy, Mommy". I grabbed her hand and tried to hold back tears as my heart broke. This was the first time I've ever seen Andrew cry. We walked with her as far as we could, then they wheeled her back to the operating rooms. It was 3:48pm on Friday, November 17th.
We sat in the operating waiting room for the next several hours anxiously awaiting updates. We were told to expect about 6 hours. A nurse called at 5:21pm to say they'd just started the surgery a few minutes before and that everything was going well. It was so hard to just sit there. We had several visitors from the ward while we waited, which was so kind. Our friends the Seegmillers stopped by to visit and brought us dinner. They just had a new baby a couple weeks before, so their service was especially generous. And the food was much appreciated! I hadn't eaten anything since Wednesday night because I hadn't had an appetite. I think Andrew had managed one meal on Thursday before spending the night at the hospital, but that was it.
We watched other families from the waiting room be called into the side rooms to meet with doctors and we heard lots of crying. I couldn't get the image out of my head of us being called in to one of those rooms to be told Abigail hadn't made it through the surgery.
We received periodic updates over the next few hours that it was going well, but taking longer than they thought because the surgeon wanted to remove as much as possible since Abigail was doing ok. During this, it was humbling to know how many people were praying and fasting for Abigail! I literally spent almost the whole time during the surgery (and over the next week) on my phone constantly replying to people's texts, calls, and messages. (Mixed with lots of Netflix.) Everyone was so kind.
Late in the evening, at the repeated suggestion of the pediatric doctor (Dr. Tiva) who'd been with us since Abigail's MRI the day before, we relocated to Abigail's room in the PICU to wait. The surgery finally finished shortly after midnight and the surgeon came to see us at 12:25am. He said the surgery went well, but he hadn't been able to remove all of the tumor. Part of it was attached to the brain stem and part had a blood vessel running right through it and he considered it too risky to attempt to remove either at this point. Especially since we didn't know what kind of tumor it was. He had another neurosurgeon check during the surgery too, to see if he thought they could take any more than they were. They sent a sample out for a quick analysis during the surgery and he told us it looked like something called "ependymoma".
We were so glad to see Abigail was back in her room at 12:45am.
Andrew again stayed with Abigail that night. We didn't want her to be alone and I couldn't get him to leave. I couldn't tell if he was trying to take care of me or Abigail - probably some of both. His strength definitely carried us through these days.
Abigail was sedated all night with all her tubes in - and I think she had about 5 different IV's and other needles as well. One in each arm, one in her wrist, one in her hand, and one in her foot.
A long day with a long recovery ahead of her, but she did it! The surgeon was pleased with how the surgery went and with what he was able to remove. Now we just needed to wait for the pathology report to see what her treatment would look like going forward. And for her to be awake so they could see if there were any effects from the surgery.
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