It's Surgery Day...

I wish our trip away with Jared was done with the intent of spending some one on one time. However, our trip to Jacksonville with Jared was done because to have a minor outpatient surgery done. For the past several months, we knew this day was a possibility but it is hard to believe that the day is finally here.

His surgery was scheduled for 9:30am so we had to arrive at the hospital at 7:30am. He was unable to eat or drink after midnight. Wait, that is not totally accurate. He was able to drink water or juice between midnight at 5:30am. When they told me this, I just chuckled. What was I going to do, wake him up to give him some water? I think not... we are a family that like to sleep, ha!

We headed off to the Children's Hospital in the morning. Once we checked in, our first stop was a dressing room where we dressed him in his hospital gown. He had two gowns, the first tied in the back and the second tied in the front....
Once he was dressed, we were sent to the play room to hang out until our next stop along the surgery assembly line. Our little guy enjoyed playing with all of the toys in the play room...

Jared was very cute while playing! He was happy playing with the toys but the second another child joined the play room, he was crawling over to greet them. It's nice to see that he is very social. I think he was happy to see other children! The other kids were not so happy to see him. More than one mother had to tell her child to share with Jared. Another child was playing with the basketball and he was not so happy about sharing with Jared. Once this child left the room, Jared grabbed the b-ball...

Jared was planning his great escape in his get-away car...

When it was getting close to surgery time, we were moved from the play room to the "holding area" where we were able to meet with a series of doctors and nurses. There were several children in this area. If you anticipated your child struggling to separate, your child was given a sedative in this area. They should really offer this medication to the parents!!!

I am so happy that Jared is young enough that he did not know what was happening. He was not given any sedative because will go with anyone. I am happy that he is so trusting but we will really need to work on "stranger danger" in the future. There was another child that was not having an easy time of separating and there was a lot of screaming.. not from Baby J. He was content playing with the toys and chewing on everything he could find.

To make the time in this area even harder, they had a play kitchen with all of the plastic food that goes along with it... even a plastic glass of milk. Really?!?!?! This room is filled with small children that have not been able to eat or drink in many hours. I thought having toy food to play with was just cruel! Jared tried to eat every last piece...

After talking with about 3 different nurses and 3 different doctors, our name was called. It was time... we were walked to the door of the Operating Room and this is where we stopped and were able to give our last kisses to Jared. Wow, this was a hard moment. It was hard to hand over my baby to a stranger (albeit a nice stranger) and know that she was taking him to a room where he was going to have a mask put over his face to put him to sleep. It was hard to know that we could not be there to hold his hand, rub his head and give him comfort. Everyone was very nice so we are sure he was taken care of but every moment we were away from him was excruciating.

It was a long hour until the doctor came out to tell us the surgery was over and he was being moved to recovery. It was another 20 minutes before we were able to go back and see him. He was sleeping soundly on a very nice nurse who quickly handed him over to me.

I was so relieved to have this surgery over and behind us. While I was alone with Jared, there was a part of me that actually enjoyed this moment. The boys are so active these days, I do not get many moments to just hold them anymore. Yep, I am a terrible mother but I enjoyed just snuggling and rocking with him for a few minutes.

After about 15 minutes, I had to wake him up to drink some juice so we could unhook his IV and take him home. I love this picture below. The look on his face says, "Mom, you will not believe this dream I just had"....
I will say it again, I am so happy he had this experience when he was too young to realize what was actually happening. He was wonderful during the entire experience. He was a little fussy when I changed him out of his gown and into his clothes. He did not have any pain medication at that point. We headed straight to the pharmacy in the hospital to get his pain med prescription filled. Once he had his dose, he was "feelin' good"...He drank two full sippy cups of juice before crashing on the ride home. I am so proud of Baby J for the strength and resilience he showed during this experience. He took another nap once we got home but he was back to his old self the same day. He took two doses of pain medication and did not need any more. The day after the surgery, he was moving around as if nothing had happened.

About the surgery; everything went well. The surgery was exploratory and the doctor did not find anything which is ok. At least we now know there is nothing to be found. Again, it's nice to have this behind us and now we don't have to worry about this again!

Take care,