Surgery or Heavyweight Bout?

I’m so proud of the Little Prince.  Yesterday was his surgery to correct his Hydrocoele.  He handled it like a champion…never cried once, very patient, followed all the doctors instructions…very stoic.  Both my wife and I handled everything well also…at least on the outside.  It is very emotional to have your child go through any kind of hardship.  The Hydocoele corrective surgery is considered “minor”, but having the Little Prince be put under and cut on is scary none the less.

I am one of those who is wary of hospitals.  It always seems like a patient goes in for one problem and comes out with another.  My mother’s heart valve replacement surgery was followed by nearly 10 days of complications.  They tried one thing, yield a problem; they tried this drug, yield this effect; try another drug, another issue…and the cycle went on for days.  Thankfully, she is home and recovering slowly.  So with this recent drama, I was on edge all day yesterday with the Little Prince…and guess what?  We took the Little Prince in for one issue and left with another.

So we get up at the crack of dawn to take the Little Prince to the hospital.  Good thing Laviyah’s emah (mother) offered to drive us.  She also stayed the day to offer her support.  [Thanks ma, I love you and appreciate you being there for us.] We get to the hospital, get a room assigned, talk to eight billion doctors, answer the same questions eight billion times and wait around for about 3 hours.  Thankfully there was a little TV so the Little Prince could watch PBS Kids and we all had books to keep our minds occupied.  Only if we knew it was going to be 20 degrees inside the hospital we could have dressed for the winter.  But the nurses provided warm blankets for my wife and mother-in-law, so they remained cozy and left the hospital with some nice parting gifts…well, at least the girls thought the blankets were gifts.

It is getting close to surgery time.  The Little Prince puts on his gown and we take the booty hanging out photo for future leverage and impromptu embarrassment in front of his girlfriends.   I asked the Anesthesiologist if I could go with the Little Prince while they put him under.  I was allowed to, however, I was informed of the following.  When a child gets put asleep you may see his eyes roll up to the back of his head, he may gurgle, his limbs may quiver.  Is he going to get surgery or an exorcism? I guess they forewarn parents to be prepared and don’t freak out or I guess I would have gotten sedated as well.  I’m a laid back guy so I wasn’t concerned about seeing the Little Prince’s head turn 360 degrees.

OK, so I’m all ready.  Off to see the Little Prince fall asleep and give him some last minutes of comfort.  We were told the procedure should last no more than 45 minutes.  We were led to the waiting room and wait to hear from the doctor.  Since it was even colder in the waiting room, we decided to go across the street and get a little lunch.  We had some Mediterranean from Nesh!.  It was decent, not the best falafel and hummus I have eaten, but very fresh and light.   The Baba Ganoush, however, was very tasty.  I enjoyed that the best. We’re full and warmed up. Time to head back and get our little boy.
We arrive back to the waiting room about 5 minutes before the surgeon comes to give us the “post-op talk”. Just like the movies – she walked into the waiting room in her surgery gear looking a bit disheveled. She didn’t look like she spent 6 hours in intense surgery, more like she slowly jogged the 100 yards from the operating room.

I wanted to hear – everything went well, you can see your son in a few minutes.

Instead, we heard, the surgery went well, but…………….

But what!!!! Well, there was a complication. The surgery for the Hydrocoele went great, but the adhesive that was placed over the Little Prince’s eyes caused an allergic reaction, so his eyes are swollen. OK, not so bad. Let’s go check on him.

WTF!!! Now I don’t curse, but WTF! This is my little boy. I trust you to solve one issue, not let him get knocked out by Mike Tyson! The doctor tried to prepare us for the allergic reaction, but I was taking aback when I saw my little man. Taking aback is putting it lightly. When we walked into the recovery room, the Little Prince was surrounded by about 5 nurses all looking at him in astonishment. As we approached, everybody disbanded. It was like we caught them whispering behind our backs so they all tried to get out of the way unnoticed. Nice try, but I caught ya’ll. But why that reaction from professionals? It turns, out that they never had this reaction before. Never. The Anesthesiologist apologized with the statement – well, I’ll be honest. I never had this happen before. The eye adhesive is hypoallergenic, so I don’t know what caused this reaction. Everyone else joined suit – the doctor, the other doctor, the resident, the other resident, the nurse, the other nurse. All apologized with the “this is new, never happened before spiel.”

All I heard was – you’re gonna be here a lot longer while we figure out what went wrong. Great, a half a day outing just turned into an all day adventure. Yeah!!! They had to put immobilizers on his arms because he kept trying to rub his eyes. So we get to spend the next few hours in the hospital with the Little Prince looking so pathetic. Now the line up proceeds…the Allergist, the Ophthalmologist, the Chief Anesthesiologist, and endless doctors and nurses.

All the while, The Little Prince got thirsty, then hungry. We saved him some hummus and pita, which he happily devoured. After about 3 hours, it was determined there is no damage to his eyes or internal organs; nobody knows how this occurred; take some prescriptions for extra strength Benydryl and steroids; and if the swelling persists for more than 48 hours, bring him back so we can not figure out what’s wrong some more.

Through all of this, the Little Prince didn’t cry once and kept his composure very well. He was a little irritated with the arm immobilizers, but enjoyed me serving and feeding him. He started getting a little annoyed at the last couple of doctor’s visits and therefore less cooperative. But hey, wouldn’t you be if you went to sleep with a smooth face and woke up looking like Gerry Cooney.

All is better today. The swelling has gone down tremendously. His scar from the surgery is fine. The Little Prince will spend the day watching movies and being waited on and his 8 hour hospital adventure may only remain a glimpse of a memory.