Jenna's Surgery

Jenna had her surgery this morning to remove the cyst that was on her skull. It was a day I was dreading. But at the same time I just wanted the procedure to be over with, so that I could stop worrying about the bump on Jenna's head. (and find something new to worry about!)

Our day started at 2:15am, when I woke Jenna up to nurse her one last time before her surgery. I then set my phone alarm to go off at 4:15 to give her clear liquids in a sippy cup, per the nurse's instructions. Unfortunately my phone alarm didn't work and I missed the 4:15 feeding. Jenna was pretty thirsty when she woke up and it was hard to resist nursing her. We arrived at the hospital around 6:30am, and the nurses assured me that Jenna's wouldn't become dehydrated from missing those clear liquids.

After we answered a million questions the surgeon's assistant took Jenna from my arms at about 8am and we were told to wait in the pediatric waiting room. Jenna started crying when I passed her off and it was so hard to just walk away and leave her. Adam and I stood and prayed together, and then sat and tried not to worry.

We were told the procedure would take under an hour, but didn't hear from the nurse until 1.5 hours had passed. By that time I was getting really nervous that something had gone wrong. The nurse called us and said the doctor would be down to talk to us in about 20 minutes. 45 more long minutes passed before we saw the surgeon.

The surgeon talked to us as we walked to see Jenna, and once I saw her I kind of stopped listening to the doctor. So the details about what he said are a bit fuzzy. Basically, he is very confident that what they removed is in fact a dermoid cyst. It was bigger than they originally thought, because what we were feeling was only the top part of the cyst. The rest was lodged down in her skull bone, and he estimated that it was around 2/3 the size of a marble. They had to remove a little bit of her skull bone (why do my children keep losing pieces of their skulls??), but he is pretty confident the bone will regrow in that spot. The surgery ended up being more involved than he had originally anticipated. Once they had removed the cyst they would see that it had a tail. It went inwards towards her brain cavity, and then branched out from there. Without opening up her head further and doing exploratory surgery, the surgeon had no way of telling whether more of the cyst existed within her brain.

So our next step will be an MRI in a few months to make sure no more cysts exist inside Jenna's head. I'm assuming this will mean more anesthesia and more worrying and more questions. But right now I'm trying not to think too far ahead, and just focus on Jenna's healing.

When I first saw Jenna, the nurse was holding her. She looked very pale and groggy and sick. Her hair was plastered down to her head from a combination of sweat and some sort of medical ointment. Her eyes had red raccoon circles around them from being taped shut, and I could see the incision on the side of her head. When Jenna saw me she started crying a hoarse cry. I immediately got to hold her and although she smelled funny and had a ton of wires coming out of her, I didn't want to let her go or stop kissing her. I thanked God that my sweet girl was awake and okay.

She immediately nursed on one side while we sat in recovery. But when I switched her to the other side, she started screaming and crying. I later realized this was because it hurts her to lay on that side of her head. Jenna was pretty upset getting out to the car but then she seemed to be in a daze for the next hour. She just stared out the window and seemed really groggy and out of sorts. After a while at home Jenna perked up. She is taking Tylenol for pain management, but is overall a very happy baby! She was really hungry within a few hours of being at home and she wanted to eat and play as usual.

I'm extremely thankful that Jenna did so well during surgery and I'm also thankful that the doctor is confident they removed a benign cyst. Our prayer now is that Jenna would have a speedy recovery and that she would get a clean bill of health after her MRI. Thank you for all your prayers!