Tympanomastoidectomy

We made it to the hospital this morning with no hiccups thank goodness. Francis thoroughly enjoyed the fact that I had to get up at 5:30am. I didn't share that enthusiasm! Here's my cutie after we arrived at Day Surgery and got her changed, sporting her Supergirl g-tube pad.

Dr. Brookes had told me I could anticipate two hours minimum for the surgery, but could very likely be three. Francis and I were pretty on edge by the time 4 hours were up and the board said she was still in surgery. Holy stressful wait batman. Ended up being nearly 4.5 hours. When he finally came to the waiting room to talk to us he said that everything went very well. Some of the bones of hearing were completely eroded away, and some he had to remove to get access to the cholesteatoma. He also had to cut around the back of her ear and shave some bone for access as well. This was all expected, no surprises. He said in behind her eardrum was "packed to the gills" with skin. It's actually pretty gross to think about. He was able to remove all the skin successfully with the exception of a thin layer over one particular area of bone. He explained that if he tried to peel that layer of skin back and somehow damaged a specific area underneath it, that Taylor would be left completely deaf in that ear, forever. So he intentionally left that skin behind. Firstly, because he has to go back in six months from now anyways to remove any new skin that could potentially grow back. Second, he wants to have one of his colleagues in on that surgery to assist in removing the skin in that one tricky spot. He said if he were to give a percentage of how much skin he left behind, it would be like 0.1% which sounds pretty good to me.

Two shots before surgery, and two after recovery

Taylor was in and out of sleep for the next couple of hours. But when her eyes were open they were as beautiful as ever, she even had a wee sweet smile or two.

I had ordered a special Supergirl backpack last month for Taylor's feeding bag and pump, and what fabulous timing, it arrived in the mail yesterday. It's perfect, couldn't be happier! It's made by Jessica at TuFe Boutique, you can find her on Facebook here.

The main concern after this type of surgery, especially how long her teeny body was under anaesthetic, is nausea and vomiting. Taylor was being hydrated through IV and we were given the go ahead to try a feed at 2 o'clock. Normally I run a g-tube feed of 240mL over 20 minutes, but we decided to run it over an hour to err on the side of caution. The whole feed ran without incident, but as I was getting some water to flush the tube, she threw up pretty much the entire feed. Poor little darlin, she didn't even cry or fuss. So we decided to let her settle and try again at 5 o'clock, and we tried half the normal size feed, mixed with a little water, again over an hour. It was only running for about 10 minutes before she started throwing up. So we stopped again. For the next couple hours Taylor was pretty upset and throwing up whatever was left in her which wasn't much so it was more heaving than anything, which is awful. And she coughed/vomited up some blood. Some of which was quite dark (old) and a result of her being intubated during surgery. But there was a little bit of bright red blood. ENT was paged and because the ear and throat are connected, and Taylor was coughing/heaving so hard, they weren't concerned or surprised that there was a bit of blood. And there wasn't any more after that thank goodness. The charge nurse ordered to stop all feeds for now and just keep the IV fluids running for hydration. At 8:20 she got all her meds with a little water and managed to keep those down. She hasn't had any more formula, we're going to let her rest and settle through the night with IV hydration and try again in the morning. Patients having this type of surgery are usually discharged post op, but Dr. Brookes said that we could overnight if we wanted to due to the fact that Taylor isn't a typical kiddo. My gut did not feel good about going home today, and I'm so glad I asked to stay. If all this happened at home I would have been beside myself.

The evening nurse took the dressing off and cleaned Taylor up a bit. I thought Taylor might feel a bit better to get the hair off her face so I put pigtails in and she's been sleeping soundly ever since. Some of her hair is stuck to her head from blood along the incision, so hopefully the nurse can help with that in the morning to get it unstuck so that it doesn't pull. I'm pretty bagged, so I'm calling it a night and hope that my little love gets some good rest too. Fingers crossed that Taylor will be able to keep some formula down in the morning!