spoken for

If you are confused, read the previous post about this.

I am so proud of my little boy… Daddy is, too!

This morning was the surgery. It was a minor surgery, of course, but it was an area into which we are new. He’s been a very healthy boy so, knock on wood, we’ve not had to put him into the hospital for anything until now. We were supposed to be there at 8 but I was unsure where to go. We stopped at the front desk and we were sent to admitting at ten-till the hour. Steve’s a bit nervous about the whole admitting thing, however, because the insurance kept telling him it was covered if it was an office visit, but they also kept telling us both it’s covered when we would say it’s in what they call One Day Surgery. So hopefully we will not have to pay for this, or much at all. So they admitted him to the hospital and everything and by 8 we were in this sweltering hot waiting room.

From the beginning, and through the whole thing (as far as I’m aware) Elijah was pretty subdued. He’d been woken up for this, of course, and had not had anything to eat in over twelve hours because he wasn’t allowed to have anything after midnight (of course, he was sleeping by then so his last meal was dinner). Thankfully, he didn’t complain about this and only said he was hungry one time when we were waiting on the anesthesiologist.

After only a few minutes, they took us back into a prep-room, I guess you could call it. Here he had to strip to his underwear and socks and get the hospital gown on. He did not want to do that. He’s picky about his clothing. He didn’t even want to wear that shirt today even though he likes orange. But later, of course, he wanted that shirt on instead of the gown, the lesser of the two evils, you know. He didn’t like the open back, either, of course.

He had to get his temperature taken, his weight, and we had to confirm again that we don’t know he is allergic to anything, etc. We talked to a nurse, to the doctor, then we had to wait about 10 minutes, I guess, for the anesthesiologist. So we joked around with him and tried to make it as light as possible. The anesthesiologist had been called to the ER but when she got there, we talked to her for a few minutes and she confirmed that he would have a gas mask to put him out. She and her assistant then took Elijah with them.

I was surprised, honestly, that he went with them without crying. He’d just been clinging to me and Steve the whole time, since he’d gotten the gown on. But he did and the two of us were forced to wait. After a few minutes, they sent us back to the waiting room. That was the only thing that really bothered me. I had understood it that we would wait in that room the whole time and I had said to him that we would be right there, as he was carried away. But they apparently wanted to bring him into that room for recovery where they would wake him back up, and they didn’t want us there. However, we stood in the hall and it was 10 minutes from the time they first took him, until when they came and said he was finished. A few minutes after that, they called us back in where he was lying in a “die bed” and was still a bit groggy.

He got some juice, they checked his vitals, and all was fine. They said he could get dressed and they would bring in the discharge papers in a few minutes.

The one thing that was really funny, we thought, was when he was getting dressed and we found that he still had three sticky pads for the heart monitor on him. We weren’t sure what the best way was to get them off of there so I asked the nurse and she came back and confirmed that, unfortunately, the best way was to just pull them off. She enlisted E’s help and he ended up basically pulling off all three himself. The third one was quite funny, however, because he had this look of sheer disgust as he pulled it off. The nurse kept encouraging him saying he was so tough, and boy, was he. He didn’t cry, whimper, or anything like that – just a grunt and look of disgust. Too bad I don’t have a photo of the look on his face. It was priceless.

Steve was asking me why I was taking the photos, he thought it was weird. But I thought of it more like — he won’t remember this in a year’s time, but his baby book will and when he’s older… he’ll know, ya know? I mean, it’s not like I took my “real” camera in there, just my cell phone!

Anyway, the doctor had to cauterize the wound so he’s not allowed any hard or crunchy foods today (but tomorrow is okay). We stopped by the grocery store and got him some pudding and applesauce. We’ve got yogurt here already so he had some yogurt and pudding for breakfast. He’s not complained about his tongue at all, no pain or anything. Occasionally he will open his mouth a bit and I can see he’s finding the new freedom his tongue has. He did say his tummy hurts a bit ago, but I have a feeling it was because he needed to potty, since like most four-year-olds, he puts it off until the very last possible moment.

When asked what he was going to do the rest of the day? I said, “whatever he wants!” All he wanted to do was go home and watch TV. He even told the nurse this at one point after recovery. So now he sits, watching Dora after SpongeBob. He’s quite himself and starting to get hyper a bit but mostly just watching TV at this point. I am wondering if I will pay for this good behavior later. ;-)

But what I really don’t get is why they didn’t do this when he was born? In the past few days I’ve been getting lots of reports of kids I know who have had to have this done, but it was in the hospital within days of birth. I think this further confirms my decision to change from the doctor that was my pediatrician in my later years as well as for my siblings and Steve’s siblings to the guy we have now. (Of course, basically being called a liar about his shots being done was the real last straw there, and a long story.)