Christian's Second Surgery

Just minutes before the surgery.  He was bouncing off the walls!

Dr. Malone, the pediatric surgeon came in to talk to us about 20 minutes before the surgery.  As she was leaving she turned and said, "Mr. Humphrey,  there is no question in that boy's paternity!  He looks just like you!"

They brought me a gown and hair net and I carried Chistian across the hall to the surgery.  The anesthesia is the scariest part to me.  I expected it to be like last year's surgery.  Unfortunately, it was a little different.  This time I carried him in and had to lay him on the table.  The nurses we all in gowns, hair nets and masks.  The surgical instruments were laid out.  I could feel my heart racing (more than it already was) and my voice was shaking.  When I laid him down they told me to cuddle up to him.  Which meant leaning over the table and holding his sweet small little hands and was cuddling his face and talking to him.  With his little bottom lip quivering he asked where daddy was.  I told him he was waiting outside for us.  They taped the heart monitor to his finger and began sticking five monitor's to his body.  Then he got to add the purple grape Lipsmacker to the inside of the mask.  He started to put it on his lips first and the nurses cracked up.  How funny to see a little boy laid out on a surgical bed so scared he's shaking and he begins to put lipgloss on.  He had chosen the color about an hour before and they showed him how to put it on the mask.  After adding the grape smell they put it on his face.  By this time I couldn't sing or even speak.  I just didn't want my tears to fall on his little face.  The anesthesologist began singing The Ants Go Marching On.  She was alternating tapping on his forehead and rubbing his ear.  Unfortunately it took three times of turning up the anesthesia to put him to sleep.  When he went out his little eyes didn't close.  He was still looking up when they said, "Ok, mom thank you.  Get her out."  They didn't have to tell me twice, but by the time I got to the door I couldn't see through my tears.  Then it was the waiting game.  Staring at the screen with his birthday to signify his name, telling us what part of surgery he was in.  I made a very hot hot chocolate trying to pass the time.  My eyes went over several pages of my O magazine.  However, I can't recall one thing on any of those pages.  As Mark and I sat there waiting and wonderinf and praying I couldn't help but notice the four other families in there waiting too.  One mom was sobbing into her daughter's pink blankie.  I kept telling myself how lucky we were to be there for something as routine as an adenoidectomy.  The surgery was suppose to take anywhere from 20-45 minutes.  It took 20, but we waiting for 40 to find out it was over.

We were so relieved when Dr. Malone came in smiling and said he did great and was in recovery.

She said his adenoids were,. "Huge and filled with snot."  She assured us we would see a difference in a week and we'd be very happy.  Within 10 minutes a nurse said Christian was awake and asking for me.  Last year this was where all hell broke lose.  The moment I had been dreading the most.  The initial recovery room has several children in it who has just come out of the surgery room.  One parent isn't allowed to come in until their child's airway is clear and they are stable.  I had to walk by four children who were in pain and screaming or crying to get to Christian.  He was the furthest bed.  His face was red from crying.  They pulled a rocking chair right up to the side of the bed.  He was hooked up to an IV and a heart monitor.  I began to sing Twinkle Twinkle but it was hard to sing while fighting back tears.  So instead I started telling him how I couldn't wait to take him to the zoo and went through all the animals we would see and all the things we would do.  The nurse at his bed smiled and whispered, "Como Zoo?"  I nodded and she winked and said he kids loved going there too.  Within five minutes he was stable and we were off to his actual recovery room.  Mark was waiting outside the door for us.  Down a hall  in an elevator and down another hall and we made it to recovery room F.  

Here we are just after we arrived.

This is as close to sleeping as he got.  We stayed the mandatory three hours.  After five cartoons on Nick Jr. (none of which he enjoyed) a book about Paul Bunyan (which he didn't enjoy) a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich and a chocolate chip cookie and milk (which he throughly enjoyed!) and a rooster balloon made by daddy from a non-latex glove which was the highlight of the stay he was jumping off of the bed.  He was attached to two machines but nothing fazed him by hour two.  He was begging every nurse to take his IV out.  When the nurse came in the last time we were hiding under a little blanket together pretending we were hiding in the woods.  I had to get very creative to keep us all sane in that tiny room for three hours.  When that nurse came in she thought we were sleeping, seriously?!  Is that what normal kids do?  Rest after a surgery?  Not our boy!
Finally at 1:00 he got his wish and we were outta there!

Here he is WALKING out of the hosptital!  His shirt is filled with stickers from the nurses who thought he wa adorable and a perfect little patient!

When we got home he took a two hour nap and woke bright eyed and bushy tailed.
All that worrying and it's all behind us now!
Thank goodness it's over!