On that day by eight o’clock we were supposed to come to Kajetany’s hospital. We’ve stumbled upon an extraordinarily long queue. I noted that Hela didn’t eat and she’s a small child, so I asked if we can come in first ? it worked 🙂 May 20 2013
The two-person room where we would spend another few days was looking clean and friendly, it had a bed for mom and bed for the child. We were told to dress the child in pajamas and wait until someone would come for us to take us to the surgery. After one hour the staff member came and asked for one of the parents. I took Hela and went with her, asked the nurse how long it would take but she wasn’t very talkative. I was told to put on protective headgear and clothes ? I did what they asked and waited in some ?temporary? waiting room for someone to come for me. Hela was smiling and joyful but I wasn’t particularly happy. I wasn’t aware how hard it is to give away the child for surgery, I felt like I did some harm to her ? after all it was me who decided they would cut her and drill holes in her skull, place something in her little body ? a foreign object. I felt really bad about it. Someone came out to call me in, I was so nervous I forgot if it was a man or a woman. I remember a long corridor, everything was ultra-modern, we passed by a few operating rooms on the left and finally went into one of them. There was operating table in the middle, everything was sterile and left a positive impression. Some doctor came in with Helenka in his arms, I asked him about those blood clotting results, he said that my pediatrician still had a lot to learn, because there were different values for adults and different for children ? my daughter had perfect blood coagulation and wouldn’t bleed. They quickly put the mask on Hela’s face, she took a few breaths while struggling a little, but after a moment she fell asleep and her body became soft. The nurse suddenly took her from my arms, put on the operating table and they told me to leave. I asked when we should come back for her ? they said the nurse would come for us because we had to be there during recovery stage. The doctor said we should go eat something because we would be needed later. But how to think about food in such a situation? It was very stressful and I felt guilt that our baby had the surgery. We went to a restaurant, but it was hard to swallow anything.
The operation was supposed to last for an hour or hour and a half. After half an hour we were already anxiously waiting in our room. After hour and a half someone called me and took me to the recovery room. A child was crying in the distance, but I didn’t see Hela ? it turned out she’s not there yet and they took me for some other mother! It was rather pathetic, poor child was waiting for its mum ? such a mistake. I went back to Dominik and soon after I was asked again, I went to the recovery room and saw Hela. She was lying on her side, connected to some machines, sleeping deeply. Her head was heavily bandaged, there was syringe with few drops of blood sticking out… I was sad that she had to come through all that, I knew she was sleeping and felt nothing, but I still felt guilty. Helenka was sleeping and sleeping, I sat with her, but I couldn’t touch her, I was told to sit and wait. Suddenly doctor Mrowka appeared, shook my hand and said that everything went well and nothing had been damaged. He told me that the surgery was performed using latest method and we should start thinking about second implant as soon as everything would heal. After 20 minutes Hela started moving and turning, so I put her on my knees and she continued to sleep. There were a few nurses with us, they called Hela ?little implant?. After one hour we were allowed to go to our room, Dominik was waiting for us there. We were happy it’s all over and she was with us. She was sleeping all day and ate barely anything…. but she wasn’t in pain because her sleep was very deep. On that day only she had implant surgery. We had to be careful around the syringe because of the blood. Soon more kids arrived but they were scheduled for the next day, everybody was interested in Hela and asked about her operation. We spent three nights in hospital, Dominik and Mum visited us every day, brought food and helped with Hela, because at times it was very hard ? two days earlier Helenka started to crawl and was moving all over her bed. Agata visited us too. The day before we left hospital they took off Hela’s bandages ? one quarter of her head was shaven, the stitch was quite large, just behind the ear, almost the size of the whole ear. The conditions were terrific, just like in some good hotel ? air conditioning, plasma screen, super clean, good food, we stayed there for a day after bandage removal, but we were allowed to leave the building. Huge terrain, parks, great gardens, it was amazing. Fortunately everything went according to the plan and we reached our home safely.
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During the hospital discharge we’ve received the external part of the implant (processor) and we were able to pick the color. We’ve asked about Rondo model (without the part mounted on the ear), but the woman said they don’t have it yet ? but she was able to show us the Rondo dummy. It looked interesting, we had already known about that model before, so we were hoping hoped to get it. We were dismayed that we couldn’t have it, so we left with quite a bad mood.
May 29 2013 Removal of the stitches. As always there was a lot of waiting. The doctor was somewhat strange ? young and not very competent, I didn’t like the visit. Hela was crying during the removal.
