Reactions

Haleigh, at a birthday party,
almost a week after stitches being removed!

I did a real poor job of preparing my older children for the way Haleigh would look when we came home from surgery, I really didn't know how she would look myself, but I should have called ahead and talked with them. Haleigh was swollen and bruised when we got home. Her eye was purple and her face had tape over her stitches, the tape also had some blood under it so it looked bad. I think everyone that reads this knows Haleigh is the youngest of 5, so seeing her this way was hard for the other 4.

Madalyn, Age 12

My oldest is 12 and she cried and wanted to know if she would be swollen for a long time, and why her eye was puffed and purple. She also didn't understand the tape at first and thought the whole area was scaring, my 4 year old was just asking who hurt Haleigh and I told him no one the Dr did surgery to help Haleigh and she was going to get better, all he heard was that the Dr did it and we then had to explain exactly what the Dr did to calm him. The two older boys were at school when we got home. When they came in my 10year old said look Haleigh has a black eye like I had. He got him at baseball practice, so my 7 year old them said, who hit Haleigh with a ball, I am going to bust them! Lol so I say them down and explained exactly what went on during surgery and why she had a black eye and why her face was swollen and had tape on it.

I so wish I would have called and told my mom to put me on speaker phone, to explain what was going on to them. I believe they were scared for Haleigh and thought someone hurt her. We have decided that because they have asked so many questions we are going to take them with us next time, and stay the whole week between surgery and stitch removal. They want to meet the Dr and see where Haleigh goes. We will treat this like vacation, Haleigh felt great the day after surgery so our plans are to get a city of Atlanta pass, and starting the day after surgery, explore Atlanta with the kids. Friday or Saturday we will take them to 6 flags over Ga that will be 3 days after surgery and Haleigh was her self for the most part by then. I think this will be good for more than one reason, it will be good for the older kids to see where we are when Haleigh has surgery, so when we go and the don't go they will know where we are, 2 the older kids need a vacation and this might be our only chance to go, 3 Haleigh needs to have

Fun when we go to Atlanta not just surgery or she is going to start to fear going, and while she will never think surgery is fun, she will know that once that part is over age get to do all this other fun stuff!


Haleigh is doing really good, she is back to her normal self and is the best kid!