Surgery Time!

Annie just went back to the OR for her double patellectomy.  The surgery is planned to be a little longer than we anticipated--about 4 hours.  She went back at 9:30 and we expect her to be out of recovery around 2:30 or 3:00.  Supposedly removing the knee caps isn't long or difficult, but the reconstruction of all the tendons and tissues afterwards will be tricky in order to make sure that she doesn't develop a muscle imbalance. 

It will be a long surgery, but fortunately, the anesthesiologist has chosen to give Annie an epidural for regional anesthesia in her legs, and only gases for her general anesthesia.  So they won't have to use any narcotics which will be much less risky to her heart and lungs.  She should also be able to wake up much quicker after surgery as well. 

The epidural will stay in place until tomorrow morning.  Then tomorrow we'll monitor her pain and hopefully transition her to oral pain meds via her g-button and see how she does.  If oral meds aren't cutting it, she'll get IV pain meds until she can make the transition to oral meds and go home. 

The plan is to keep Annie on valium for the next couple of weeks to try to prevent any seizure activity that might pull and tear at all the sutures in the reconstruction of her knees.  Her knees will be immobilized for 4-6 weeks and hopefully she'll be a new girl with no pain when this is all over!

Thank you for everyone's prayers and thoughts for Annie.  We appreciate everyone who is helping our family while Annie is in the hospital and recovering.  We'll post with updates as we get them.

Annie was happy just before going back to the OR.  I think she's as excited as we are to finally get those knee caps out of there!