Elijah's surgery

Yesterday Elijah had tubes put in his ears.  He's had 6 or 7 ear infections in the second half of his first year.  This is well over the APA's recommendation for inserting tubes.  I've been anticipating this day for a very long time.

In the waiting room

We had to check in to the medical clinic at 7:15am.  Almost immediately, they brought us back to the pre-op room.  My mom was here visiting, so she stayed out in the waiting room.  The nurse took his blood pressure (which was impossible), weighed him (his weight came out much lower than at his 1 year well check last week), and got his pulse.  After she had done all of that, another nurse came in to ask if she had any questions.  This was our first indication that our nurse was relatively inexperienced.  She seemed annoyed that she was being checked in on and said that everything was fine, except she couldn't get a blood pressure.  The more experienced nurse told her that blood pressure is impossible to get on anyone under 3 years so she wouldn't worry about it.  Eventually they both left and the anesthesiologist came in.  She mentioned something about the medicine Elijah was supposed to receive, and that was another red flag.  We told her that Elijah hadn't taken any medicine.  So she flagged down the nurse.  Then I heard the nurse out in the hall discussing the concentration of the medicine and calculating how much to give Elijah based on his weight.  That was also concerning.  This nurse is calculating how much medicine to give him, in her head, and discussing it with another nurse?  That did not inspire confidence.  The anesthesiologist told us that this was an anti-anxiety medication that would make Elijah more relaxed.  She told us that we should wait 10 minutes for it to take effect and in the meantime she wasn't going to do anything to upset him.  That was really nice.  Through the whole pre-op process, Elijah was screaming hysterically.  He woke up very early that morning and we couldn't give him anything to eat or drink.  And he was in a strange environment with strange people touching him.  He just wanted to cuddle up to either me or Daniel and be left alone.  The medication started to work and the anesthesiologist and surgeon went over everything they were about to do.  Double, triple, quadruple checked Elijah's name, date of birth, allergies, and procedure they were going to do on him.  It was very reassuring for me.  Once we signed the consent form, a nurse came in with a warm blanket and took Elijah away.  I regretted not giving him one last kiss, but told myself that I would see him very soon.

In pre-op waiting for the anti-anxiety medication to take effect

And only 15 minutes later, they were calling us back to the post-op room.  A nurse was holding Elijah.  She handed him to me and I sat in a big cushy chair with a warm blanket over him and waited for him to wake up.  Daniel and my Mom sat next to me.  We chatted for about 45 minutes.  Once in a while Elijah would startle and wail loudly, and then settle back to sleep in my arms.

Waiting for him to wake up

When he did finally wake up, he didn't cry at all.  He guzzled his entire sippy cup of milk and happily ate cheerios by the handful.  All the nurses thought he was just adorable.  We dressed him and took him home at about 10:30am.  He ate an amazing amount of food when we got home.  A cup of applesauce, a cup of yogurt, more cheerios, a whole stick of string cheese, and he wanted more!  We eventually cut him off because we were worried he would vomit it all up.  He wanted to be held and got upset easily.  I thought a walk in the stroller would help.  So we took a walk to Chipotle.  It did help, but only as long as we were moving.  He ate a lot more food at Chipotle.  We could barely eat ourselves because we were shoveling food into his mouth.  He ate everything we put in his mouth, and cried in between bites for more. His eyes were also kind of drooping and crossing.  It was so sad.  By the time we got home, he could barely keep his eyes open.  My mom rocked him and he fell asleep within 2 minutes, still with a death grip on his sippy cup.  I pried it from his hands and my mom put him down in the crib.  He didn't move a muscle.

90 minutes later he woke up.  He was fine for a few minutes, and then he started crying hysterically.  I held him and he laid his head on my shoulder and screamed.  For 20 minutes we sat like that.  He would stop for a minute or two and then for no reason start screaming again.  I was so glad to have my mom there because I would have lost it without her.  She brought him some cheerios and that finally calmed him down.  We moved him to his high chair and he ate two whole pieces of bread with peanut butter.  Finally he seemed back to himself.  At about 3pm.  The doctors said that in a few hours he would be back to himself, but that was not the case.  He was uncoordinated and upset for most of the day.  It was difficult, but I'm glad it's over.  I hope that this will drastically reduce the pain and discomfort he experiences in the long term.