Where To Even Begin…

Hutton went in for her hemipelvectomy surgery on Thursday 2/13. The surgery went great. They were able to remove what they needed and everything looked great.  

When she woke up from surgery she was having a hard time managing the pain. Long story short, they were unable to manage her pain and she ended up having to be intubated and transferred to the PICU at Ronald Regan UCLA. Her surgery was at UCLA Santa Monica  and they do not have an PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) so when things took a turn she needed to be sent to Ronald Regan UCLA in Westwood.  I doubt we will ever get the image of what happened after they called the “code blue” out of our heads.  I have seen a lot of horrible and traumatic things in my life/careers and that immediately jumped to the top of the list and I would not wish that experience on my worst enemy. 

Hutton was sedated and had the breathing tube in for 2 and a half days.  The longest 2 and a half days of our lives.  While she was sedated they were able to re-place her epidural with one that actually works and her pain is actually being managed! Praise God! 

She is still in the PICU and she is making great strides in her recovery.  Hopefully we will be out of the PICU in the next day or so and we can go down to her “normal” floor. 

As most of you know, Ronald Regan is our “normal” hospital where she sees her doctors and gets chemo. All the nurses and a lot of staff from the pediatric floor know her so well that when they heard the was she was in the PICU came up to offer their support, love, and prayers. 

As horrible as the way this move to Ronald Regan happened, we believe whole heartedly that this is the right place for her to complete her recovery after surgery versus being at Santa Monica. 

We want to thank everyone for their support and prayers. This was definitely an event that was not expected, one that will affect us in the future in ways we do not know. Luckily for Hutton, she does not remember anything and was actually very confused as to why we had changed hospitals and how it was now Wednesday when just “yesterday” I told her it was Saturday. When I explained it to her, her response was, “So I time traveled into the future!”

…that may have been the ketamine still talking.