Mass Discovery

This literally came completely out of no where. There was truly nothing off about my daughter at all. The other day I left training from my job and headed home. I picked my daughter up from my parents and drove to my job site to hand in a payroll slip from training. Upon talking to my boss (Pharmacist) I noticed out of the corner of my eye that my daughter had a huge golf ball sized mass protruding out of her neck. The Pharmacist told me that I should bring her to the nearest Emergency Room and get it checked out immediately.

I put my daughter back in the car and headed straight for the emergency room at UConn Medical Center. Once there my daughter was still acting normal and completely unaware of something sticking out of her neck. I checked her into the ER department and awaited to be seen. We chose a seat to sit down and she started running around a bit and climbing on other chairs. (We were the only ones there so I let her play)

Once we were called back to check her vitals everyone was completely perplexed as to how something like this could manifest itself within about a half hours time. They decided that she needed to have an ultrasound done to check on what was inside the mass and then proceed from there however they may need to.

During the ultrasound three doctors came in to the room to watch the ultrasound and see if they noticed anything. After a while of doing different scan views they decided it was possible that she had a hematoma. (Hematoma- collection of blood outside the blood vessels, usually in liquid form within the tissue) They told me that they were not equipped to handle something like this and she would have to be rushed to Connecticut Children's right away. Before they could do that however they needed to sedate my daughter for transporting and put a breathing tube in so that she didn't potentially stop breathing due to the mass growing before all our eyes.

Within a few short minutes we were immediately surrounded by a dozen people. Doctors, Nurses, Techs, an Anesthesiologist you name it they were in our room. I had to ask that some people who were not immediately needed in assistance to back off because I was becoming claustrophobic and on the verge of a panic attack all while sitting on a stretcher with my daughter while they started IVs and medicine to make her loopy and safe for transport.

Let me stop just for a second and tell you that while I was emotional has some of this was transpiring because I didn't understand all that was happening, there was nothing to prepare me for having my daughter fighting tooth and nail with everyone trying to get the IV in her to going limp and weighing like a ton of bricks.

That was when I truly lost it and was very inconsolable. As I watched helplessly as they put the breathing tube down her throat I thought how about this would be the last time I would see my baby and that she may not come out of this.

The ambulance came and whisked us away to Childrens Medical. Upon arriving she was immediately taken into a room where a dozen more doctors, nurses, tech's, etc were waiting for her.

Everything after is a complete blur. I can hardly remember the details and a lot of it is still fuzzy. Arley spent the night in the PICU and were told that she would need surgery the following morning. I've been trying to wrap my head around all of this but I simply just can't do it. I've been an emotional wreck all day hopefully tomorrow is better and brighter.