Our Amazing Fighter.

This surgery was not by any means the scariest surgery Addi has every had, actually no where close. That of course didn't keep me from stressing about it constantly and losing sleep over it. The scarier part of this surgery was what the Doctor might find when he got in there. If you have read my other posts then you know that there was talk of reconstruction and further surgeries. Going in, I was under the impression that those future surgeries would be happening immediately, if not immediately then fairly soon. So I was much more scared of finding out what the results of this surgery were, more than even the surgery itself. Although any surgery is scary in my opinion.

We found out beforehand that Addi's doctor had taken into account how taking the adenoids out would affect her speech. He decided to only take the top half out and leave the bottom. So now we don't have to worry about her speech becoming worse, but still have hope of it improving. Great news, right?!

When the doctor came out after the surgery, he started showing us pictures of inside her throat and drawing pictures to help us understand. Her airway is narrowing in spots, one spot in particular is really narrow. It looks like because of everything that is happening in her nasal area it is affecting everything below. It has caused her airway to be weak which is allowing it to be pushed in by outside factors (not really sure if its muscle or bone or what is pushing in on it, I was a little overwhelmed at the time that I don't think I could of even formed the question to ask what was possibly pushing in on it). I was sitting there silently freaking out. I swore the doctor was going to tell me that he was going to have to cut open her throat and fix this. I stayed as calm as I could on the outside, and kept listening. He was going on and on about it, and finally after what seemed like an hour, he said that he wasn't going to do anything about surgical about it yet. He instead wants to focus on getting her breathing through her nose, which this surgery should help and also they have some other "tricks up their sleeves" to help her along. He feels that once she gets breathing better her airway will strengthen and hopefully fix itself. She will need more surgery in the future, but not in the near future. Which was SO relieving to hear. He went on to say that she is so young and he feels she has already been through enough and doesn't want to do anything else surgical until it is absolutely necessary, and after she grows more we can see what just might happen to be something she grows into/out of. So for now they are keeping a close eye on her breathing, to make sure the narrowing doesn't get worse and to try to improve her nasal breathing.

I know this probably doesn't sound like fantastic news, but to me it was better than I had ever hoped for. My baby can focus on being a baby and not have to go through more surgerys for a while. To me, that is a win! I am just hoping and praying she grows out of all of this and that all this worrying was for nothing.

So besides all that, the surgery itself went well. Addi was in a good bit of pain afterwards, which was so hard to watch. She kept saying "I sooo sad", and asking "what you doing?" and fighting every nurse that tried to touch her. She ripped her IV out, so we really had to force drinking on her more than we would like to. It breaks my heart to see her like that especially since she is normally so spunky and crazy. Sad Addi is so much worse than Angry Addi, which might I say it pretty bad. Addi does everything 100%. So when she is happy, she is super happy. When she is angry, she is extremely angry. When she is sad, she is intensely sad, she is pretty much the saddest child you will ever see.

On the way to the hospital:

Before Surgery:

 After surgery:

She is such a fighter, it is amazing how resilient she is. She seriously is always amazing me.

These past few days have been hard, but we are lucky that we had so much support while going through this all. I can't even begin to thank everyone for their support. We are truly blessed to have such awesome family and friends in our lives. I really don't know how I would of gotten though all Addi's surgeries without everyone. Without, my parents dropping everything to help us out every. single. time. (I can't even begin to tell you how amazing they are.) Without Greg's Mom getting her whole church to pray for Addi each time, and coming up to be with us during her heart surgery. Without family and friends making meals, thinking and praying for Addi, checking in on us, and just lending an ear for us/me to vent to. JUST AMAZING! Every little bit of support means the world to us. Thank you ALL from the bottom of our hearts.