Not long after they checked us in we were pulled back to a pre-op exam room where somehow Cambria was being super patient with everyone despite being denied food since midnight!!! (This is generally unheard of as food is by far her highest priority) Through a combination of passing her back and forth between Derek and I, rocking her in the chair, and bits of the first TV we've let her outright watch (a truly horrible episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse - seriously, Mickey YOU'RE the Mouse-ke-tool) The doctor, OR nurse, anesthesiologist, and anesthesiology nurse all came in and talked us through the details of the procedure and the post op. They weighed her again, now 14lbs 10 oz, took a little blood sample and her temperature, and suddenly I was handing her over to the nurse. That happened way too fast for me... we were all talking about what was going to happen, but I somehow just wasn't prepared for her to put her arms out asking for her.
The next hour was the longest of our lives. The waiting room in the surgery center at Childrens' is also one of the most intense places I've been. If you're lucky like we were, and only there for a simple procedure you can't help but humbled and thankful. You are surrounded by people who are truly going through hell on earth. There was one family there who this surgery was their last hope... they had 5 other surgeons all over the country refuse to attempt this surgery, and this surgeon wasn't able to say just how it would go.
Finally the front desk nurse came and told us that the procedure had gone well, they had gotten all the samples they needed and we'd be able to see her soon. Then what seemed like an *eternity* later, the surgeon came back and told us that they had gotten 5 samples, and that the tumor looked homogeneous, (meaning the samples they got should be very telling of what was going on all over the mass) Another couple of minutes after that we were able to go back to post-op and see our little girl :-)
As we walked up, Cambria was screaming her little head off - beet red, crying and kicking SURROUNDED by nurses. There were 3 or 4 of them in this tiny post op room, rushing around, taking vitals, putting blankets on her and trying to soothe her. They were actually ordering pain meds for her as they thought she was in some kind of pain from the biopsy to have elicited such a response... nope! That's just what Cambria does when she's hungry. At 4 months old, she has perfected the Hangry. We popped a bottle in, and she was fine! So the nurses wandered off, dispersing among the rest of the post op bays. About 5 minutes later she was happy and back to sleep:
While she was sleeping off the last bits of anesthesia, her oncologist came down to talk with us. She said that while they don't know if it *is* Neuroblastoma or not, it looks an awful lot like it, and she asked us if we were interested in sending any and all leftover samples from Cambria's treatment in to a national study on Neuroblastomas. So now, it won't change Cambria's treatment plan, but whatever tests are done for her will be sent along and may help another kiddo in the future :-) The oncologist told us we should expect results Friday or Monday (because of the holiday) but she would call us as soon as she got word. After this, and a good 45 minute nap, it was time to be released and we had this happy little girl staring up at us:
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