"Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy."
Quote by: Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

NAM Appt #23, Pre-Admission Testing, Arm Restraints and Stress

NAM Appt #23, Pre-Admission Testing, Arm Restraints and Stress

Jim went into NYU with Emily and I today because we had four appointments including her weekly NAM adjustment. It was a big day focused on preparation for surgery (in less than two weeks!) I'm really glad he came in because it made the whole day more relaxed. Emily seemed really happy too - I mean, she's always happy, but she was all smiles for everyone and didn't cry at all until they drew blood for her pre-admission tests.

First we saw Pat Chibbaro, the feeding specialist and one of the team coordinators to discuss the ins and outs of surgery including how Emily is going to eat after surgery, how to put on the arm restraints (Emily slept through that demonstration) and how surgery day will be structured. We'll arrive at the hospital at 6:30 am and she goes into surgery at 7:30. It's a five hour procedure after which time she'll go straight to recovery and we can join her there. She is on some heavy duty pain killers for the first 24 hours and then it's just Tylenol every four hours unless she is very uncomfortable and then we may try some Tylenol with codeine (that is not recommended though because it can cause airway swelling).

We learned so much today, but I am exhausted. I'll go into more detail about the pre-op stuff and who we met with tomorrow. The NAM adjustment went well and one really great thing that happened today is that Dr. Cutting looked at Emily and said she looks good which means she's all ready for surgery. It seems that all our hard work has paid off and we're in the home stretch.

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