Post-Surgery Scare

This post is going to be a backwards post of sorts. I have pre-op pictures to post but I know several people have heard about our scare so I wanted to give those details first.

Teryn came out of surgery fine. There was no problem with anesthesia, intubation (temporary breathing tube), or the procedure itself. We went to see her in recovery and she seemed to be comfortable and resting fine. Because she was given pain killers that are a respiratory depressant we stayed a little longer than usual. Teryn was awake for part of the time and still seemed comfortable but sleepy. Eventually we were discharged from recovery and sent up to our room. On the way up Teryn was happy to look at all of the decorated color tiles and was even attempting to make some of her "talking" noises. Once we settled in the room she was happy to kick and play in her bed and continued to talk to the nurse. James went down to get us something to eat and while he was gone Teryn fell asleep again.

We had our lunch and after cleaning up I walked into the restroom. As I was coming out I heard that Teryn was awake and fussing a little. I walked over to her bed and saw that she was trying to roll onto her belly. Not such and easy task with double arm splints. (Placed so she can' t get her hands in her mouth and disrupt the sutures.) ***Another side note you need to know about our smart girl is that she has figured out that if she is refluxing she should roll on her belly so she doesn't choke. ** So....she was trying to roll over and as I got to her I realized that she was bleeding a little from her nose. In recovery she had slight bleeding from her nose but this seemed to be much more and fresh blood at that. As I began to move her blood began just pouring from her left nostril. She was very upset. I immediately called for a nurse and James came over to help. It was quite a struggle between trying to keep her up to clot the blood and also to keep her from choking. All of a sudden four nurses come in and all of them attempted to help me get the bleeding to stop. After a very short time and seeing how upset she was they paged for her surgeon to come in. ( She had left campus briefly during this time to pick up her car- but was on her way.)
Teryn was extremely upset and thrashing her head like she does when she gets tired or mad. The nurses kept trading off as they saturated cloth after cloth. It wasn't just bleeding, it was pouring. Now as you know, I have been through lots of scares with this little girl's medical history but I have to tell you this episode is at the top of the list.
As minutes pass by Teryn gets more mad and the bleeding gets worse. Eventually it begins coming out of her ears and then her tear ducts. Now, let's talk about terrified. The surgeon comes running in having illegally parked and broken traffic laws to get there. She plugged Teryn's nose with gauze and tried to clean out what she could from her mouth. Praise God none of the sutures from her cleft repair had been disturbed like I feared. She was yelling and thrashing so hard I was sure she had torn something loose.
In an effort to get her to calm down I did what I always do at home which is sing her this silly song I made up with very few words that repeat. I began singing it and then so did one of the nurses, and then another, and then another. Guess what? Teryn calmed down. However, the surgeon was still very concerned about airway and possible aspiration of all the blood. They immediately moved us to the intermediate care unit with the nurses' station right out our door and a big window to see in.
Once things calmed we started discussing what could have happened. That means the doctor and I because James was sent to sit at a nurses' station. After the third time someone made a comment about his queeziness we kicked him out, poor guy. We had all already informed him several times that if he hits the floor it will be a while before anyone can come to his rescue. Okay so possible theories 1) A bleeding disorder that has never shown up before 2) A clot that broke loose 3) A combination of meds wearing out, pain coming back, and vascular system dilating back to normal. The surgeon ordered blood work stat and the results show no sign of disorder or need for a transfusion. Praise God!!! She is pretty convinced on theory 3. It would have been perfect timing for her anesthesia to have worn completely off, there may have been a trickle of blood in the back of her throat which she would normally have pushed up immediately into her nose but because she can't now that she has a full palate, it pooled until it was forced up. By then Teryn was upset from the pain, the foreign feeling in her mouth and the more upset she got the more she bled.
The surgeon was honest with me as all this was going on and admitted that this was highly unusual. Not what you want to hear when you see your baby like that, but I appreciate her honesty in the situation.
Teryn has gotten her Tylenol, morphine and will get an antibiotic and ear drops soon. I asked if the blood could cause problems for her new ear tubes so they agreed it would be best to go ahead and do drops. She is now sleeping but still with a bloody face, bloody clothes, and partly bloody bed. As much as I hate to see her sleeping and not clean, none of us can bare to agitate her more when she is finally resting after such a traumatic event. We cleaned up what we could and let her rest.
So what have I learned about this....ahhhh...always a lesson. Satan has been trying to flood my mind with fear for the past several weeks. Horrible fears about this surgery. I rebuked him daily and claimed the truths instead. I know fear does not come from GOD. I am sure that Satan wasn't happy that I called his bluff. As soon as I thought we were in the clear he came at me again with a new situation. I would like to say I was calm and collected and felt God was in control during this scary event but to be honest all I felt was horrible fear as I pleaded to God in my heart and my mind. Once things calmed I was reminded that God really IS in control. I wish I had remembered in those scary moments. Later the nurses commented on how well I handled it and how calm I was. I admitted to them that I was definitely not calm inside. I was terrified. But, then again on second thought I guess that peace you have all been praying for me really was there after all. I mean hey, I didn't run from the room crying like I wanted to.