Updates & Clarifications…

Thank you for everybody’s lovely comments for Abbie yesterday!
Wow have I ever made some rushed & misleading blog posts recently, but back to that in a minute…

Firstly, Abbie’s operation yesterday went very well.
She was scheduled for day surgery and therefore was not allowed to eat after 8am.
Originally (probably because she was an add-on to an already full day of surgery) she was scheduled to go last and not have her procedure until 7.30pm. I think it’s fair to say I was dreading that – because she does not cope well with either being hungry or penned in!
But we were extremely blessed and because she was the youngest child being operated on that afternoon (by quite a long way I might add) they bumped her from last to first in the order and she got to go in at 1.30pm.

Just prior to the surgery we got to hang out in the play room.
 She was her typical “can not stand still” whirlwind…

After the surgery it was understandably quite a different story…
Recovery was a period of time best left forgotten, as she was extremely distressed coming out of the operation. She needed to be given a few shots of pethidine to relax her, but really nothing was going to make her calm down. Not fun.
(I was tempted to ask for a shot of it myself instead…)

But once back in her own room she came out of her panic and recovered really quickly all things considered…
Her new quilt, home made banana loaf, lollipops & her DVD player all saved the day…

And plenty of cuddles with Mummy of course…

TV is serious business didn’t ya know… 🙂

By 6pm she was doing so well that we were released to go home.

Our night was reasonably rough in places – I pretty much could set a clock by when her pain killers were due. But once they had started working again each time we managed to get back to sleep.

Today on the other hand she has been absolutely fine.
– Talking up a complete storm too in long strings of words. (I’d say she’s really enjoying being able to hear a bit better!)
You would almost never know she’d had surgery yesterday. Apart from reeeeally not enjoying the ear drops she has to have. They must burn quite badly for a while I think 🙁 But to give her credit where credit is due, she still holds still and willingly has them put in. What a trooper!
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly kids bounce back…

Here’s hoping for a great sleep tonight and continued dramatic improvement tomorrow!

Thank you also for everyone’s kind comments about Neil finishing his apprenticeship!

I just need to clarify one (quite major) thing though…
The ending of my post was a bit ambiguous and left most of you with the impression that Neil was actually now home.
Sadly that is not the case…

While we hope that he will be finished doing long away rosters very soon (as in ASAP), unfortunately he is still doing them until further notice.
He actually had to leave again for another 4 week swing last Wednesday, only about 20 minutes after we received his certificate in the mail. So we haven’t even had a chance to celebrate together yet. He was also unfortunately unable to be home for Abbie’s surgery.
All things being equal, he’d usually be able to stay home for it. But it’s a long story and this time that wasn’t possible due to work commitments. Especially as he’d already come home a few days earlier than scheduled when she’d been in & out of hospital a few weeks ago.

Anyway that’s the current state of play.
I can assure you that we are exploring all avenues for him to be home more, but in the words of Mainland cheese “Good things take time”.
– That reference is especially for all my Kiwi friends out there 😉

Will chat again soon