The waiting room wasn't nearly as bad as I'd imagined, it helped that there were two of us with Dax and that he wasn't quite as active as normal since it was so early. But he was still running around the room happily babbling to all the strangers.
They called us back and had us remove Dax's shirt and put on a kids hospital gown. Then the nurse added an ankle bracelet, which Dax HATED.
The surgeon came and spoke with us briefly. They weighed Dax - he was 31 pounds.
They attempted to get his vitals but he just wasn't cooperating. By this point, Dax decided he was "all done" with the surgical center. (The "all done" sign is twisting both open hands in the air)
The anesthesiologist had us give him a little cocktail to drink to make him drowsy and calm. Dax decided he didn't like it after the first taste, so we had to pin him down and force his teeth apart to get the rest of it into his mouth. Lots of fun. Then Dax became far more limp in my arms. He signed "sleepy" and then he made up a sign! It looked like he was pretending to put a syringe of the cocktail into his mouth and slurping it up. That was the new sign. He signed "more" and then kept doing that new sign over and over, occasionally throwing in "sleepy" again.
So that's him being doped up and us killing time waiting for his turn for surgery. When it was time, the nurse came in and had me lay him in the bed, she pulled the sides up and wheeled him away and sent us to wait in the waiting room.
So we went out to the waiting room and I got a cup of hot cocoa. I sat down and barely a minute passed when the surgeon came out, smiling, to tell us how well everything went and that the surgery was all done. Yay! He said as soon as Dax woke up in a few minutes, the nurse would come get us and we could go see him and take him home. So we waited.
And waited
and waited.
And noticed a little boy going home with his mom who had gone into surgery after Dax had gone. 15 minutes had passed, we spoke with the receptionist, who paged the nurse to ask what was up with Dax. Dax was still asleep. This is where I got really really worried and was starting to regret doing the procedure now instead of waiting until Dax was old enough not to need general anesthetic. The nurse said sometimes it takes longer for some kids to wake up. So we waited some more.
FINALLY they told us Dax woke up. It had been 28 minutes. I went back and he was being held gently in the arms of a nurse. He immediately reached out to me, I sat in a comfy chair with him and nursed him. He was so happy to be allowed to nurse again!!! And wow, I must say... nursing feels SO comfortable now. It's like there's this soft cushy padding below now.
All done! Here's a short clip where we tried to get a glimpse of his tongue post-op. He sticks it out (more than ever before) in the very beginning of the video.
He's also been playing with his tongue a little bit, with a very curious & happy look on his face. :)
1 comment:
I'm glad everything went well with his surgery.I'm sure you're glad all that is over. He looks like a happy little guy.
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