The last few days.......

Alice's Recovery in the Picu @ Doernbecher Children's Hospital 1/22/16

This last year has been a year of reflection for myself. I think for a majority of my family as well. My 4 year old Alice experienced an episode of Syncope (passing out) while I was dropping her off at Pre-k. She was taken by ambulance to Doernbecher where they determined that the lead to her pacemaker had fractured (broken) and they needed to do surgery to place it. They needed to wait to place it because 1. She was going fine at the time and 2. They already had someone in the OR getting ready for surgery so they couldn't get in there and do it until later that night. I was ok with that because she was doing fine. They finally found us a room we could go to where we could relax in while we waited for surgery and just as they were wheeling her out of the ED room she says "Mommy, I don't feel so well" and she passed out. They wheeled her back into the room and called a code blue.........She had flat lined and became completely unresponsive they did 4 rounds of CPR and finally got a response that was the longest 15 minutes of my life. All I could do was stand there and cry. Finally when she was stabilized they decided to move her straight into surgery. The kid that they said we had to wait for they cancelled that surgery, I felt guilty because I'm sure those parents are scared out of their minds but, at the same time I was appreciative that my child was getting the fix that she needed.

This was a long day for us, This all started at right around 8am 1/21/17 when people were dropping off their kids off at school, and she came out of surgery at 7:30pm. Hours of waiting, wondering, hoping, praying, and feeling the love thoughts and prayers that our small little community was saying for us. In all my life I have never felt so much love and concern for my family, I knew that everyone was rooting for Alice to pull through and that those who asked were really just concerned for her well being. Alice was in the hospital for 5 days and then sent home, I can honestly say that this time around the hospital stay was a lot harder because she didn't want to stay still but she really couldn't move around either.