The McDougal Family: Tanner's Surgery

On June 5th, Tanner had surgery to remove a cyst that she had on her left brow bone. We got up that morning and headed to San Antonio at 6:30am since we had to be there at 7:30. Once we got there, we got checked in and Tanner played for a few minutes in the playroom that they have for children. They called us back around 8:30 and we got Tanner dressed in her gown. They let her pick out a stuffed fish and I brought her blanket, "baby" (her glow worm), and "bea" (her green bear that we call Mr. Green but that she calls "bea", like "bear" with a Boston accent!). Haley got there shortly after they brought us back and Tanner was so happy to see her. She had no idea what was going on, but I think she really liked all of the attention and that Haley was there. They came around 9:10 to give her Demerol so that she wouldn't be upset when they took her back. This made her act so funny! It was like she was drunk! She was making the funniest faces and giggling uncontrollably! We all thought it was so funny and we couldn't stop laughing. We wished they would have left her with us for a little longer because we were getting such a kick out of her behavior, but they came and got her after about 5 minutes. A guy wrapped her in a warm blanket and took her back. She wasn't upset at all. Once she was in the OR and under anesthesia, they put an IV in her foot and did the procedure. It was a little over an hour before we heard our names called in the waiting room. We went back and they sat Clinton down and took me back to see her. Whenever I got there, she was in the arms of the anesthesiologist and she was screaming and flailing. It was kind of disturbing to me to see her that way and to know how scared she must have been. I took her and sat down with her in a rocking chair that they had in the recovery room. They had her on oxygen for awhile because her level kept dropping every time they would take it away. That was a little unnerving, as well, because the machine she was hooked up to kept blinking red and beeping every time that they would pull the oxygen off. I'm glad she was asleep for all of that so she couldn't sense my tension. She eventually stabilized on her own after about 30 minutes and a big cry and they wheeled us to the area where Clinton was waiting. She slept for another 30 minutes or so and when she came to we gave her a cup of juice. She was so thirsty because she hadn't been able to eat or drink since the night before and it was now around 12:45pm the next day. She sucked the whole thing down at one time and then immediately threw it all back up again. She went back to sleep after that. When she woke up again, we gave her a little more juice and she kept it down so the nurse came to take her IV out. She didn't like that very much because there was so much tape on it that it was taking forever and by the time they got to the needle she was fed up. She kicked her leg as they were pulling out the needle and blood went everywhere! It was all over the blanket and the chair, and a little on my jeans. I felt so bad for her. We got to leave shortly after that and we were so glad. We went to Chick-Fil-A and got her a kids meal and she ate most of the chicken and some of the fruit and kept it down. We got home that afternoon and took a family nap. She slept until about 4:30pm. Once she got up, though, she seemed like she felt really good. She played and laughed and had a great time that night.

The next day we went to San Antonio to run a couple of errands. The swelling got worse over the next two days. It was pretty bad that Sunday, but it went down after that. We had to keep the tape over her stitches for ten days. We went to her follow-up appointment ten days later and they took the tape off and pulled the stitches out and it looked so good! I am so happy with it. You can hardly tell it even happened. We are so glad to have this behind us, and we're sure Tanner is too!

I love this picture. This was the day after the surgery in San Antonio at the Riverwalk.