Monday, November 29, 2010

Zoey's Pre-Op Day


We are checked in and ready for surgery in the morning--that is if Zoey's ominous, all-day cough doesn't morph into something serious.

At the moment, she thinks having surgery being a diva is a very cool thing. She definitely knows what she wants and she knows how to get it. Sigh... We will be working on that soon. I am very impressed with Shriners. They do an awesome job with the kids and are amazingly P.A.T.I.E.N.T.

Checking in

"Bye-bye, Doey."

Our first activity of the day was to role play with a doll. They gave Zoey a doll and we went to work.

Not exactly rockin' the surgical hats. Mommy was a bit rebellious about tucking every hair inside.

Here is Zoey's doll. She named her Joy. And then Kate. And then Joy. Joy has a surgical hat, too. Here Zoey is putting stickers on the mask that will go on Joy's face for surgery.

We tucked her into her little rolling bed and Zoey made sure that Joy's seat belt was tight. (She corrected the staff when they put it on too loose.)

And here they go...off to Joy's surgery. Zoey insisted on 'helping' push the cart.

Time to give Joy her surgery hug.

Mommy, too.

Then it was off to lunch for the ever-popular, non-nutritious hot dog and fries.

Meanwhile, Joy had surgery and now she is needing her cast. You can see here that she had the same surgery as Zoey because her little foot is gone and there are stitches on her leg.

Zoey helped cut the strips for the cast.

She helped get the strips wet and mold them to Joy's leg. {Joy was still 'sleeping' through this.}


There were a few minutes to play between appointments so we headed to the playroom. Zoey couldn't decide what to play with first so she held the ball and drove the car. Hey...she's a girl...she can multi-task!

She looks a little lonely playing with these trains all by herself. {Don't kid yourself--she LOVED having the whole playroom to herself and ran from one thing to the next.}

Tongue hanging out means deep concentration.

She shoots! She scores!

Time for a photo shoot! Lots of nice photos of her little foot.

Then we went to physical therapy so that Zoey could try out the little walker she will have after surgery.

Learning how to butt bounce up and down the steps so she can get up to her room at home.

Then time for vitals! Everything looks good--although she has a cough and it has raised some concerns. She coughed. And coughed. And coughed. ugh.

X-ray time.

Every time she sees one of these games she makes a beeline for it. This one was golf and she was actually able to play it.

We then went to do a plaster mold of her little foot so that years from now she can see what it looked like. The first try was a dental substance that she was supposed to put her foot into. She was having none of that. She started to cry and said she was scared of it. So....after trying to convince her it wasn't that bad, we got her foot into the top of it only to realize that it had already set. Drat. Plan B was a cast and it didn't give us great detail but the mold is decent and it will give her some idea of what her foot looked like. I forgot to take a picture of it to show you.

Finally...showered and tucked in. She greatly enjoyed getting to watch TV {a rare privilege}, order as many cartons of grape juice as she wanted, and ordering room service for dinner.

I think she is as ready as she a four-year old can be. She doesn't understand a lot of what we try to explain, but at least she isn't telling people, "I'm habing turgery and I gonna get my head cut off," like she used to.

Foot. Foot, Zoey. Not head. Foot.

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Also wanted to mention that my brother-in-law, Lance is having a bone marrow transplant tomorrow to treat leukemia. We are praying it is successful. Wish we could be there to lend support.