The Brower Buzz: Brielle's Surgery

I can't believe that Brielle's surgery was almost 2 weeks ago. She is doing so good, thanks to everyone who prayed for her!! The surgery was suppose to take around 2 hours and ended up taking close to 4 so you can imagine our nerves. We got to Riley at 12:00 and at this point Brielle was doing well with not being able to eat. Her surgery was scheduled for 1:30, but they didn't take her back until almost 2:30. While we waited a child life specialist came in and talked to Brielle. She showed her the "mask" that they would use to put her to sleep and explained the whole process so she could understand it. Then Brielle got to pick a flavored chap stick, she chose bubblegum, to spread on the inside of her mask so it would smell good. She also got to pick a smiley face that was stickers and put the face on her mask. This is a really neat thing they do at Riley to help ease the fears of the children going for surgery, it helped Brielle a lot! Once it was getting close to her time the nurse came and gave her a medicine called versed. It makes you very sleepy and makes it easier to take the child from the parents, worked like a charm on Brielle. They call it "goofy juice" and boy did it make her goofy. She was laughing at everything. The nurse that gave updates during the surgery said she giggled the whole way back to the operating room all the way up until she fell asleep. It made it a lot easier on Jake and I as well. We then went to the waiting room and waited what seemed like forever. It was 6:30 before the nurse said he was done and closing her up. Dr. Cain then came out and explained what all he did. He cut the bottom section off of her ureter then literally cut her ureter in half, lengthwise. This is what made the surgery take longer. He was cutting right along her bloodline so he had to be very careful. He then re-implanted her ureter into her bladder, this is the painful part of recovery. Because her bladder was traumatized it causes it to spasm which is very painful. We expected Brielle to be up and moving around on Tuesday, like the last surgery, but wow were we wrong. She had a lot of anxiety the next day and was very afraid to move. Sitting up and walking was hard for her. That got better with each passing day and by Friday of last week she was moving around much more. She is now pretty much back to herself. The pain and spasms have diminished greatly and she is doing great, she returned to pre-school today!! Dr. Cain placed a drainage tube in her kidney that comes out of her incision, just like last time, but we go to Riley tomorrow to have that taken out....YIPPEE!!! We are so excited to be rid of that!! Brielle goes for an ultrasound in one month and has an appointment following with Dr. Cain. We are praying that everything looks the way he wants it to and that she will be healed of this problem forever!! (some of the pics were taken with my phone so they aren't the greatest)

Surgery Day

Poor Brycey had to stay with our sitter without sissy

learning all about how they would put her to sleep

her bubblegum mask and bear that the child life specialist gave her, she named him brownie

Daddy and his sweet girl

Our adorable little doctor

our little dr. after taking her "goofy juice"

Jake and Dr. Cain - we absolutely love him!!

This is how she looked in the recovery room

The next day, Tuesday, she was not feeling good :( I would have done anything to take her pain away, it broke my heart to see her hurting like she was

Wednesday morning-looking a little better

Before we got discharged Wednesday afternoon we went to the playroom on the floor and Brielle got to paint with some other kids. She had to quit before she was done though due to a spasm which always made her want to go lay down