Hopefully the last surgery for the princess for a while anyway.

Hello friends,
With all that has gone on with Ariel over the summer on the medical front we were so ready for a break.
With that said her VNS was dying and it has definitely helped her seizures.Her Neuro wanted it replaced ASAP.
We didn't need her seizures to get really out of control.
Yesterday Ariel was having a large number of meltdowns.For those that don't know she has sensory processing disorder and has a lot of issues with certain things like crowds, fabrics, certain textures things like that.
Since we were told to be at the hospital at 5am due to the need to have extra labs drawn  we decided to get a hotel since I live almost two hours away.

 We stayed at the Ramada in Tukwila.
It was not too bad the halls were a bit musty and the walls seemed a bit thin as we could hear everything going on in all the rooms around us,but it was in a safe location and the rooms were pretty nice.
Our plan was to check in then go to The Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner and maybe the fun center to play some games.

           One of our favorite restaurants.

 I was happily eating my Mizithra my absolute favorite at The Spaghetti Factory and if you have never had it you have to try it.
Ariel started looking really spacey and seizurey.
She started slurring her words or would just not answer and usually when that starts the seizures will get worse.When they get really bad we would be in full crisis mode.
I knew it was best for us to just leave.
The folks there were really nice and boxed up our food and we just went to the hotel.

  Here's a little summary of where the VNS goes what it does and what it looks like.

We got all checked in and everything was going really well.
I really liked the doctors and the nurses until the Anesthesiologist came in.
I did not care for her at all.

She right away was acting like this was just a nothing procedure like having a wart removed or something.
She was poopooing the need for stronger pain meds if needed even though we already discussed it.
We discussed the fact that Ariel has a lot of circumstances that make her need specialized care.
I do not like cookie cutter formulas for anyone having surgery.

I told them if you do not control her pain she will have seizures.
 she has Fibromyalgia and every time she has surgery her pain is through the roof.
She also was acting like it was stupid to get blood counts done on her.
Despite the fact that her counts have been really poor and she's had a bunch of issues with anemia and other things..

Even the Resident Anesthesiologist was rolling her eyes.
I was also pretty ticked off,because we came there an hour earlier that the whole reason of having blood counts done.

                        I.V. placed

Ariel was in surgery for two hours and then came out and was moaning in pain.
I was not happy they just didn't give her something quickly to control it.

     Ariel's new puppy and her piggy Gus.

After a short time of the pain she started having seizures.I was ticked!
They ended up having to give her Versed and Ativan.
Still wouldn't give her anything through her I.V. to control her pain.
We are home now and needless to stay I will never step foot in that hospital again.

There was a man at the pharmacy who's wife had just had surgery and he was picking up her pain meds and he was puzzled and they were like "Oh the doctor only gave her two days worth."
 He was not too happy.I don't blame him it's ridiculous!

I understand that substance abuse is a real problem,but Seattle policies are idiotic to me.
Hospitals won't control peoples pain after surgery,but yet they push for all these rooms downtown for junkies to shoot up.
Makes zero sense to me.
Those are the ones you should be trying to give help to and not enabling them.

Anyway the only reason we went there was because they were a few of the places that did the VNS.
Over here and at Overlake in Bellevue they were awesome at controlling her pain.
She's at home now hurting quite a bit and seems to be having a reaction to the iodine.
If she's still having issues I will let them know tomorrow.
At least it had enough life left in it the doctor was able to set it to the original settings so it's right back where it was and she got some new magnets to use on it too.So that's a definite help.
Thank you for the prayers and everyone that has put kind words and pictures on Ariel's page.
God bless,Linn