My daughter is my hero!

Last Thursday, we trekked up to the outpatient surgery building, near Dell Children’s, for yet another surgery.  Same anxiety, different child.

We’ve had some speech concerns about Anna-Laura and after a consult with an ENT and a speech pathologist, we decided that a tongue clipping was in order.  It was relatively minor surgery but it meant that we had to put another child in the hands of  a surgeon. 

Hold on a sec, let me get out my soapbox.

I don’t care what kind of surgery your child is having, it is hard to hand over your child to the surgeon.  Albeit, Luke’s first surgery was a HUGE leap of faith.  Call it PTSD, but having to do that again stirred up all sorts of stuff in my brain and in my heart.

Ok, I’m done.

At 5:45am, I awoke, nursed Luke and he amazingly went back to sleep in Scott’s arms.  ALG and I loaded in the car and arrived at 6:45 on the nose.  Scott and I had briefly mentioned to her that she would be going to the doctor and would take a little sleep and when she awoke her tongue would be all better.  We didn’t make a huge deal of it, but we also didn’t hide the procedure details from her either.  For her, that was just enough.  Never once did she wig out.  She smiled the ENTIRE time and even waved to me from her bed as the nurses wheeled her into surgery.

Unbelievable.

I did chuckle a little.  The pre-op nurse was all, “Ok, sugar, I’m not going to stick you” and “This thing is just going to hug your arm a little.”  I wanted to interject that my kids have seen the insides of more hospitals, watch their brother get poked and prodded and seen way more than kids their age should see – a blood pressure cuff was not going to send them into outer orbit.  But then I had to remind myself that those things do freak some kids out.  I’m just thankful that Anna-Laura was a-ok with all the hospital stuff.  She put on her gown, giggled over the hospital socks, hopped on the bed, gave me kisses and then waved me off.

Then I promptly let some tears leak from my eyes.

Fortunately, I had packed the big girl undies, so after whipping those out and texting Scott that all was a ‘go’, I was ushered to post-op to wait for her.  Ten minutes later (that is no lie), the ENT walked in, said she did great.  Wow.  That easy, huh?

One thing I forgot to mention that got quite a few chuckles was the additional “procedure” on her chart.  If you remember our *fun* ER visit a couple of weeks ago, she still had three staples in the back of her head.  I asked if they could just remove those while she was under general anesthesia instead of us having to go back to the ER.  Hey, I’m all about multi-tasking and saving a trip somewhere.  They obliged a tired momma and pulled them out.

When she arrived in post-op, the nurse commented, “Wow, I wish all my patients woke up as happy and content as her.  She just opened her eyes, smiled and nodded when I asked if she wanted Tylenol.”

That’s my girl.  Nex ttime I’ll tell her to score some hydrocodone for her momma.

After 45 minutes of popsicle eating, juice drinking and Dora the Explorer watching, we were getting her dressed and walking out the door.  Time was 8:55am.  She was stoked about the ice cream, popsicle, applesauce and mac & cheese diet for the next 24-48 hours.  We even hosted friends from Indiana (shout out to Jeff, Barb and Ernie) for lunch at our house shortly after we arrived home.  I am telling you…no one believed me when I told them she had just had surgery.  What a trooper.

After a visit with Luke’s ENT, looks like we’ll be back at the hospital on July 9 🙁  Always hopping around these parts.  I was a total slacker in the blogging department this week.  It was part surgery, part family reunion, part mini-vacay, part exhaustion.  I’ll be back at it this weekend.  Be sure to check in on Sunday!  Make it a great weekend.