Twelve Hours Later...

Now the plan was to hopefully get "released" to the outside world today... and that 'kinda' happened...:)

We had a discussion with the doctors this morning when they were doing their rounds and they had some concerns about the length of drive home, weather, precautionary kinda stuff... They were not convinced that Mary needed to stay any longer there (This was good...) but they were overly concerned about the 4-5 hour tour that we were going to undertake starting in the afternoon after all of the discharge paperwork was completed (This was not so good).... A compromise was reached, in that 'one' of would drive home (Can you figure out who got saddled with that AGAIN??) and two of us would get another ride on a private plane to faciliate a 'safe' trip :)... They had a transport team heading this way via Trail in the afternoon that had room for the girls... So, we are all back in K-Town :):):)

Now let me caveat that by the fact that Mary and I are in the Peds ward at KGH for the night still, but we are back home...ish... :) I left the girls to wait for the transport team at about 12:30 and got underway in the truck, and they got out of Children's to the airport about the time I was in Chiliwack... A few delays in waiting for someone to meet them in Trail to transport their passenger or some such thing - They landed in Trail about the same time I got to Merrit. While they technically arrived in Kelowna before me, we did manage to get to the hospital ahead of them and met in the peds ward... The flight paramedic was slightly surprised to see me there, but that is what happens when you have to make some stops along the way :):) NO LAWS WERE BROKEN... (At least none that will be recognized as being 'caught' doing... How's that...) That was the official story anyway... :)

So, after a bit of a wait to see a plastic surgeon, Mary was examined and officially admitted and we should be discharged from here in the morning. Joyanne is currently over at my Aunt and Uncle's cuddling up with daughter #1 and trying to get some sleep... I will pick them up in the morning after we are discharged and homeward bound we will be... (fingers crossed)... So... we are 'kinda' home :) Mary traveled so well in the plane and was content to watch some cartoons and patiently wait for her IV's to be removed. I think that was the highlight of her night - and I can't blame her - she put on a few miles with them in. She is snoring in the bed beside me, and I think I will take that cue and try and get some shuteye myself. Tune in tomorrow when hopefully this ride will finally end...

...I have a rollercoaster for sale - CHEAP! :)

C & J & S & M

Sunday Night and Monday Morning Update...

Mary had a good night sleeping in the PICU at Children's Hospital. We were not allowed to stay the night with her in the PICU, and the couches in the waiting rooms were already reserved for other families. The social worker at the hospital arranged for us to stay the night at the Easter Seal House, which is located two blocks away. Although it was hard to leave Mary, she has been sleeping/napping for most of her stay here. We also knew that in the PICU she had one-to-one nursing care, which made it a bit easier.

Mary was drinking some juice and milk last nigh from her feeder bottle and was able to keep it down. She is only on Tylenol for pain relief and is doing well with that as well.

It is Monday morning and we are now waiting for the doctors to complete their rounds. We *might* get discharged directly from the PICU and drive home TODAY!!!! Since we do not have all our supplies here (that happens when you are not prepared to fly to a different city) the nurses are getting some diapers, wipes and syringes (to feed Mary soft foods) ready for us for our drive.

When Mary wakes up from her morning siesta we are going to try to feed her some yogurt. Please keep your fingers crossed that we will get to go home today. I miss Sylvie terribly, our kitties, our house and our own daily routine.  

Update from BC Children's Hospital

We arrived last night around 3:00 am. The medical staff at the PICU here is very knowledgeable and kind. They are taking good care of Mary. She is still sedated with the breathing tube in. They plan to remove the tube in the PICU around noon today. They will then monitor her in the PICU for several hours to make sure there is no swelling.

Mary will either be in the PICU tonight, or possibly in a different PEDS ward room. If she goes to the PEDS ward we would be able to stay with her overnight in the room. There is no where to sleep in the PICU, I spent the night from 4:00 - 7:00 on a couch. I don't know what would happen tonight if she is still in the PICU, as I don't want her to be without me.

Cory is driving up this afternoon after getting Sylvie set up to stay at Grandpa and Grandma Giles. I really need his support now, and am very grateful that Sylvie will be in good hands.

The last update from Saturday (well, Sunday now...)

Well, for those of you not keeping score on Joyanne's Facebook updates, I will try and summize the tail end of today in a nutshell... Mary and Joyanne are currently en route to Vancouver Children's Hospital via LifeFlight. They should be at YVR in about 40 minutes and then another 20 or so to Children's from there. Count on at least another 45 minutes to an hour to transfer Mary over to Children's care should put Mom and Mary there by 03:00.... I have never been so exhausted that I can recall... At any rate, I have no quams about saying that this is the best care we could have asked for... Everything that came out of this afternoon and tonight put simply was for Mary's best interests.

We did get to spend some time with her in ICU after she was finally brought up from surgery... She was still intubated, so she was not conscious, but the fantastic nursing staff got us right up to speed with what they knew and what they were doing... My hats off to that entire ward for your support... :) After the decision was made to have the correct kind of support available when Mary was extubated (ie: the pediatric teams at BC Children's) they wasted no time getting the LifeFlight in the air and up to Kelowna and a transport team delivered them to KGH. That is where time began to stand still... Now I have ZERO complaints about any of the care that was given to Mary, but stabilizing her for transport and all of the saftey precautions and plans took a great deal of time... And that is what we had to reference... Time... So wait we did with our little munchkin and wait some more. I watched them load Mary into the back of the ambulance after all was said and done, gave my love to Joyanne and off they went...

So, I find myself in front of the computer at my aunt and uncle's (who I KNOW have spoiled Sylvie rotton... That is another story for later though...) trying to rationalize this very, very long day in a blog post, which if I let it would consume me with all of the details that I am trying to recollect of the past 16 hours... To everyone who have texted, BBM'd, called, stopped, prayed, commented, visited, offered, thought of..... All of it... and any of it... Thank you for all you have brought to this experience... We could not and cannot do it without you... :) We will try and keep everyone up to date when we know more!

Now if I had my camera, I would have a fantastic picture of Sylvie and Gramma Marjie sleeping in the solarium... I'll see what I can drum up.... :)

Stay tuned for the next installment...

C & J & S & M

Surgery #2 update #2...and it just keeps getting worse....

Still no answers...Mary *might* be transported to Vancouver tonight as the medical staff here is not agreeing on a plan. Apparently we are 75% going sometime tonight. If we go, it will be so someone can take out her breathing tube tomorrow morning as no one here wants to. We have not seen Mary yet. 

Update after surgery #2

Just to update... Mary went into surgery this afternoon. The surgeon found some "dead tissue" and decided to redo her lip - instead if just closing the hole. She is apparently quite swollen, so they are going to keep her overnight on the ventilator just to be safe, in case there were breathing complications they do not want to try to put a breathing tube in her mouth if she is so swollen.

Back in the hospital...

We woke up this morning and saw that Mary's lip suture was opening. We quickly packed up a bag and headed to the hospital. We dropped Sylvie off at Grandpa Roy and Grandma Marjorie's where we know she will be loved and spoiled.

After quickly seeing the ER doctor, they paged the plastic surgeon on call. We were happy to hear the plastic surgeon on call was the one who preformed Mary's surgery. We knew there was a risk for this happening as her cleft was quite wide, but are still disappointed. We feel so bad for Mary, she was just making it around the corner and now this...

We are now in the Pediatric Ward and Mary is having a much needed nap. We don't know when she will be going into surgery today,but hope it is soon as she hasn't had any food since last night, or pain meds since this morning.... We will definitely be here over night and will have to see after that.

We will keep you posted.