Whew!

I am sitting in Children's hospital, on a lumpy cot that I will call my bed for the next two nights. Kourtney is stable and resting comfortably with a Morphine infusion running. Her mouth has been opened to twice the size it was and she has a mouth guard of sorts keeping her mouth open to allow for healing to occur. It is rather shocking to say the least to see her like this nothing could prepare me for what I saw today. Fortunately the mouth guard will only be worn for 5 days and hopefully the graft sites will be healed up after that. Dr. Courtemanche was very inventive along with his counterpart Dr. Fung (a periodontist) in coming up with this "stent" of sorts.

I have say that the buildup to this surgery was one of the worst we have encountered. Kourtney and I felt it the worst as we still wallow in the lingering disappointment of her hand surgery last year. In a previous blog I wrote about how Kourtney wanted straight teeth and then went to the orthodontist who gave her some hope that she could wear Invisalign braces. Of course nothing is easy with Kourtney so she would have to have surgery on her mouth before they could make impressions of her teeth so we had to got to Dr. Courtemanche for that but when he saw her teeth and the way they were touching down on her lips he became more concerned for the integrity of her skin and the braces became secondary.

The surgery date came rather quickly after our visit with Dr. Courtemanche, which gave us little time to wrap our heads around what this involved. Without going into a lot of detail we were sent into a tailspin by Dr. Loo's receptionist who gave us a very inaccurate account of what was going to be in store for Kourtney. The more she talked the more I wanted to sit, rocking back and forth with my hands over my ears repeating, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Finally after about a week of not really knowing what the surgery involved we spoke with Dr. Loo and she explained everything to us and eased our minds.

This last week there were huge meltdowns by Kourtney and . . .myself (go figure) and Todd, well . . . I will let him explain himself one day. All I can say things were pretty tense around house keeping in mind that it was the end of the school year, no caregiver, our wonderful friends moving to Ontario,  saying goodbye to Kourtney's Teacher's Aide, Tammy, (who is moving to Calgary) terrible rainy wet weather and no Lululemeon shopping sprees (did I just say that out loud?).

So after a beautiful prayer time with our friends and Dave and Bev last night I decided that I was going to take the pain I was feeling and SHARE IT WITH SOMEONE ELSE !!!! No, that would have been a 'lick my wounds' way out. Instead I decided to avail myself to someone in need. I prayed that I would find the right person to share some light with.

We left at 0530 and arrived at the hospital at 0645. It is always an ordeal to do the pre-op stuff for Kourtney. It is never straight forward and of course when a nurse meets nurse a power struggle ensues. Then the anesthetist peeled the OR nurse off the ceiling and assured them that "mom knows what she is doing". I helped the anesthetist with the IV, attaching probes her foot, and leads to her chest while the OR nurses stood back and got their hands slapped if they got a little too close or did something wrong. It was a little amusing to watch, but I was so thankful Dr. Lauder let me do all that stuff. It made it all flow so much easier. So after Kourtney went to Sleepy Land I headed to the van for a nap. I was awakened by a phone call from a Children's Hospital number after 2 hours, which made me panic.  It was the orthodontist wanting my permission to remove some permanent teeth of Kourtney's. I was glad she asked but was thankful I know nothing about teeth and allowed her to take charge. So after that instead of curling up into a ball and not talking to anyone I sat outside in a reception area wondering where my target was going to be. It didn't take me very long and I spotted a former patient of mine from the maternity ward, and due to confidentiality I won't go to any details, but I realized that was the "moment" that I was looking for! Done, my goal, was met. After that I went back to the waiting room and listened to the petty complaints of people while their little Johnny were getting tubes being put in their ears. At one point I wanted to scream at them until I saw one Dr. come out and heartlessly tell parents that their son has Krohn's disease. My heart ached for the mom so many times; I have been there!

So ya, this has been quite the day. My daughter is quite funny right now, she can't speak very well and says she was born on "pirate ship" she called me an old hag, and presses her fart button on her iPad when she wants something. She hasn't seen herself, but we are going to keep her away from all mirrors until the stent comes out.

Once again, we can't help but feeling blessed by all the prayers of our friends but also the support the medical community has given our family. Although we haven't had many prayers answered in our favour, we still trust God's hand and his heart. HE IS NOT TAME . . . BUT HE IS GOOD!