Pain, Pain, Go Away... Litte Annie Wants to Play!

Annie's been home from the hospital for two days now--four days since surgery.  We honestly thought she'd be doing better by now than she is.  Her pain meds are working most of the time, but we are still setting alarms every 4 hours around the clock to try to stay on top of her meds before she starts getting too uncomfortable.  She's still on Lortab and valium, but we're hoping to taper off the lortab soon in hopes that tylenol with codeine will be enough for her in the next few days. 

She doesn't have many awake moments.  Annie has generally been asleep 24 hours a day since she's been home.  The only times she's awake are when she's fussing or crying.  It's so hard to watch her have so much pain and feel so helpless to do anything. If she was half her age or half her size, I would hold her on my lap and rock her and snuggle her, but all we can do now is rub her head or snuggle on her bed with her.

She hasn't had any more seizures since her big grand mal on Friday, fortunately.  But she's now developed a series of very large cankers on her bottom lip that I suspect are nearly as painful for her as her knees because of how hard she cries when we try to wipe her mouth.

Yesterday was the first day we unwrapped her legs to check her incisions.  The incisions themselves looked pretty good, but we discovered that her left ankle was incredibly swollen.  The ace wraps on her legs had been put on incorrectly and were trapping fluid in her foot and ankle.  So we re-wrapped her legs after changing her dressings and we're keeping an eye on her swelling today.

Swollen left ankle

Right incision looking pretty good

On the other leg she had developed large blisters from the steri strips pulling too tightly on her skin, so we trimmed back the steri strips and padded the blistered area, so hopefully that area won't be quite so tender for her now.  Amazingly, she slept through this entire process of changing her dressings and wrappings!

Left incision with blistering

Left incision after fixing the steri strips.

We are so grateful for all the thoughts and prayers from family and friends.  We have been so exhausted caring for Annie around the clock that we really appreciate all the meals, snacks, and treats that have been brought to us.  Thank you so much to everyone who has helped to lighten our load and pray for Annie!

Annie likes having a position change by being in her chair a few times a day.  We just have to keep her feet elevated to help prevent more swelling.