PARENTS' JOURNAL
June 2005
Since we were talking surgery again, it meant that Hilary wouldn’t have much of a fun Summer. She certainly wouldn’t be able to swim after the surgery due to the risk of infection. We decided to make a long weekend out of it and drive down to Corpus Christi to hang out on the beach for a few days before her surgery date.
One of Hilary’s main concerns with this second surgery had to do with the amount of hair glue to be used. Dr. Bogaev had to part Hilary’s hair front to back and apply hair glue to hold the hair down so it wouldn’t flip into the sterile surgical field and contaminate everything. After the first surgery it literally took WEEKS to get all that stuff out of Hil’s hair. Before this second surgery Hilary wrote a limerick, with the help of Connie and Lisa (one of Connie’s co-worker), regarding the use of excess hair glue. He read the poem in the holding area, rolled his eyes good-naturedly, held up his hands in surrender and said, “Okay, okay, I get it.” He told us later that the OR nurses were making fun of him for taking so long parting Hil’s hair and combing out all the tangles before applying a very small amount of hair glue. He showed them the limerick and they were in quiet agreement.
Hilary’s second craniotomy was done on June 9, 2005. The same incision was used, but once the skin was peeled back, Dr. Bogaev went through the right temporal area, having to go through the actual dura lining of the brain this time. The risks were all the same as before plus a new risk of seizures, since the brain lining was being “interrupted”. You would think the second time around would be easier on us, as parents. It was NOT. All the old fears, doubts, and “what-ifs” that surfaced six months earlier reared their ugly heads again.
The surgery went well, again, and it turns out that the first ICU nurse that was assigned to Hilary that night was a patient of mine several years ago. As we started talking, it further turns out that I worked with her mom in the ER back in ’92-’93. It really IS a small world. Hilary recovered quickly, as before, as 13 year olds seem to do. She was moved out of the ICU two days later and was out of the hospital after a total of five days.
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