... the Starbucks baristas at the Children's Hospital location, that is. Which is basically another way of saying that we've had a few doctor's visits since my last post (and, of course, each visit to Children's includes a visit to Starbucks for Charlotta's hot chocolate and Mom's Earl Grey Tea Latte.)
On August 2, we had a check up appointment with Dr Reilly, Charlotta's back surgeon. When we were talking to Charlotta before the appointment, we said "whatever you say, don't tell Dr Reilly that you were on the slip'n'slide!" (she was just really sitting on the slide, not slipping, so not really that bad for her back). Well, we get into the exam room with Dr Reilly and the first thing she blurts out is, "We've got bunkbeds now." So, naturally, we had to explain that Charlotta only slept on the bottom and her sister slept on the top. That seemed to appease him, but he went on to say that we really should be letting her spine heal and not do any activities that might stress or strain her back. Good thing we didn't mention her bike riding, swinging or playing basketball :-O.
Overall, the doctor was quite happy with her progress 10 weeks after surgery, and just wanted to keep an eye on her lower back (which was not operated on) to make sure her lower spine didn't curve or twist.
Then, on August 9, we went back to the hospital to have the Vagus Nerve Stimulator (VNS) implanted by Dr Singhal, our neurosurgeon (yes, we have one of those too!). The surgery was planned to last about 2 hours, and we were scheduled to go home at the end of the day.
It was pretty uneventful, but about an hour and a half into Charlotta's surgery, as I was sitting in the daycare surgery waiting room reading my book, I thought I overheard one of the nurses say something like, "Dr Singhal's doing CPR now." The second I heard those words the blood instantly drained from my face and my stomach went into a knot. Dr Singhal? CPR? Charlotta? I just sat there, looking at the nurses station, hoping to hear some other detail or something that would reassure me that it wasn't Charlotta that needed CPR. Despite straining my ears, I didn't hear anything else, and couldn't bring myself to go up to the nurse and ask if I had overheard correctly. Instead, I sat there for about 20 minutes imagining the worst. Finally, one of the neurology nurses came out and told me that everything went just fine and that Dr Singhal was finishing up the surgery now. Phew, I must have heard wrong...
We came home around dinner time, and Charlotta had a little something to eat and went to bed. The next day, she was practically back to her normal self. What a trooper! She has two incisions: one under her arm where the VNS device was implanted and the other at the side of her neck where the electrical lead was attached to her Vagus nerve. Both of them have dissolve-able stitches covered with steri-strips -- at least we won't have another trip back to get the staples out!
We do go back to the hospital on August 24 to get the device turned on. They don't turn it on right after surgery in order to give the body a chance to get used to all the new hardware. When the device is turned on, it will be at a very low setting. We'll then go back every two weeks or so to have the settings increased. It should take about 2-3 months to have the settings running at a therapeutic level.
We're so excited to see how this will affect Charlotta and her seizures!
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