WARNING - VERY LONG POST
Wow it has certainly been a long time between posts. We have had a lot going on around here lately so I haven't really had any time to update. Ok so what has been happening, well we brought Emma home to a hero's welcome lol, her big sister had balloons everywhere and had put a big "Welcome Home Emma" sign in the garden, you couldn't wipe the smile off Em's face when she saw it. I must say that I had a big smile too as it was so nice to be home again.
Pictures of each day Emma was in hospital, I have probably posted them before but I wanted to do this for the relatives and also to have them all together in one post.
DAY 1 - finally get to see our princess after a mammoth 10 hours in surgery (tumour was bigger than originally anticipated which caused a few hiccups for the surgeons)
Day 2 - She started her day in ICU but they then moved her upstairs into high dependency instead which was better anyway as it was a lot quieter.
Day 3 - today we saw Emma's swelling at it's worst. This child did not even look like my little baby and it was so heart wrenching to see. She was not in a lot of pain which was great as they had her on a fair dose of morphine.
Day 4 - Swelling starting to decrease quite rapidly (thank goodness) You can see where the cut starts from behind her ear and it goes almost to the other ear, they also had to cut her from the ear up to the top of her head. She also has the tracheotomy in.
Day 5 - we are finally starting to see our little girl again (praise God) Day 5 also saw another visit from her big sister
Day 6 - Wait..... do I detect a slight smile? Yep day 6 and she smiled, I am thinking it is because she finally got the trachy out.
Day 7 - Not a lot of change from day 6. She is a little happier not the have the trachy in but she is still in considerable pain and is very hungry. Hopefully she gets to take her gastric nasal tube out tomorrow. One of her surgeons told her that she was able to take it out herself which she did on day 8
Day 8 - YAH the nasal gastric tube is out and yes Emma pulled it out herself (insert gagging noises from mummy here) What a very brave little munchkin we have.
Day 9 - We were homeward bound, yep they let us out. Boy it was good to know that I would be finally sleeping in my own bed again. The hospital and staff were great but I don't think I could have slept another night in a recliner chair. We arrived home to balloons and a very happy big brother and sister.
Emma is doing really well, we saw her surgeon on Thursday and he told us that the toxicology reports were back and that none of the cancer had made it to the lymph nodes. He then went on to tell us that he has never seen a tumour as large as that in a child's head in all of his 28 years of doing this. LOL I did have to say that our Emma has never done anything by halves and she probably wasn't going to stop now. If she was going to get a tumour then it was going to be worth talking about (hehehe)
My mother has been up here for three weeks. She had to come up and make sure that Emma was indeed ok..... It has been nice having her here but she went home today which was sad. I really do wish that she didn't live so far away.
The four of us - Mishae, Mum, Emma and Me
Mishae and Mum
Emma (I was playing with the hipstamatic app on my iPhone)
All the cousins on the Love side of the family. Only 3 girls amongst that rowdy bunch of 4.5 boys.....
My Mother in law (Lee), Mishae and Mum
My Brother (Ian), Mum and Me
Stuarts brother, sister and their families came up to see Emma a week ago, so as you can see it has been a very busy time for us.
Emma is back up to the hospital on Tuesday to see the Speech Pathologist and Physiotherapist which is going to be a regular occurrence now for a few months or at least until she can open her mouth again. The tumour had wrapped itself around her jaw bone and prevented her mouth from opening very far and the muscles have not adjusted back yet.
She has been going to school for two and a half hours each morning and we are hoping that she can go back for a full day next week. She is physically ready but I am not sure if she will cope emotionally. She is a bit of a broken little munchkin at the moment but things are getting better slowly each day.
Her next MRI and CT scan are due on the 15th of November and we see her surgeon on the 18th, so until then we will know nothing more.
Ok well if you have managed to get through to the end of this post without falling asleep then well done LOL.
Am going now to try and do some scrapping tonight (if I actually remember how too)
Take care and stay safe
Leanne xxx