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Surgery Day

We got in to the office at 7AM,  did a routine check-in with the Tech and Stella was taken in for prep, left in the hands of the experts. Her Internist and the Orthopedic surgeon were working in  tandem monitoring her Addison's and fixing her eyes while on the table.Too nervous to go out of the area, we got a hotel room, slept, watched TV and did work. In hindsight this was the best idea because as it was, sleep would be a rarity in this recovery process, especially the first few nights home. Stella was out of surgery by 2PM and we got to see her around 3PM. Their criteria for her to go home was that she had to eat. We both laughed.


I can't wait for Stella to look just as she did prior to the surgery, smiling and happy.

When Stella came waddling into the exam room, I was horrified. If someone says that you look even remotely okay after surgery, they're lying. I couldn't look at Stella initially (Travis said, come here beautiful girl, and at that, I couldn't control my tears), the bright eyed beauty we dropped off appeared as though she was wearing a very swollen, shaved mask  with bloodied bulging eye sockets underneath. The Tech must have read my expression because she said that the surgeon over corrected Stella's eyes due to the degree in which her lids turned in. We listened to her directions intently. We were to administer eye gel, eye drops 4x a day in each eye, antibiotic 2 pills every 8 hours, and her prednisone (taken due to her Addison's) would be increased almost 20x its regular dose. We questioned this, but knowing that we increase it in stressful ( different) situations we weren't too surprised. We were advised that she'd probably be whiny (she wasn't! What a brave, tough girl) because she was in pain,  and we made the hour drive home, nervous and ready for this  day to be over.

Neither of us slept well that night, upset and worried how this recovery would go.

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