Anesthesia

Let me start out by admitting that I had to look up the spelling of Anesthesia because I tried spelling it several times and it never looked right (probably because it wasn't).  Today Andrew underwent anesthesia for the 3rd time in his short life.  The other procedures were relatively minor ones as well and he always did fine.  That being said, its always a little scary and nerve-wracking to have your child be put to sleep.  The waking up is always traumatic.  They don't understand where they are and how they got there. Thankfully this time he was old enough to articulate that he was scared and wanted me and I could talk him through the fog until he was more coherent.

Andrew's procedure today was to get his nose cauterized.  He's been having frequent nosebleeds and it had just gotten to the point where it was invasive (middle of the night, riding in the car, at the breakfast table, at the park).  It was unpredictable and messy.  He was sick of it.  I was sick of it.  And, bleeding at school is no fun.  So, we bit the bullet and scheduled the procedure.  Because they have to burn the blood vessels that are open and causing the bleeding, you have to be put to sleep.  The procedure itself only takes 5 minutes.

We headed into the outpatient clinic late this morning.  We had packed a backpack of books to read while we waited (since we had to be there an hour later).  We read through the books pretty quickly and then we read through several on the shelves there.  It actually was a super sweet 45 minutes of us snuggled in his hospital bed reading through lots of his favorites: Olivia, Elephant and Piggie, Superfriends, and Dr. Seuss.

When they took us to the pre-op room, they gave Andrew some fancy paper boxers to wear.  He thought they were hilarious, so we took a picture.

Then they gave us some awesome socks (why do the hospital socks never stay on? I had flashbacks of these lovely babies and wearing them at the hospital after each csection).

And the most exciting part was getting to pick out the flavor of the anesthesia mask (if nothing else, writing this post has sealed it into my memory how to spell anesthesia correctly).  When they asked him what flavor he wanted, he said "cookie dough" and laughed saying he knew they only had fruit flavors.  The nurses thought that was hilarious and he decided on orange. Mmmm..smells so yummy. 

One of the well-meaning nurses said he could take it home with him, but it wasn't on his bed when they wheeled him back in, so I forgot about it.  Andrew did too, until we were 2 blocks away and then in his post-surgery stupor, he was getting pretty worked up about it.  So we went back for the mask.  He wanted to bring it home to show his brothers.  The nurses gave him a new one and put in extra orange flavor.  Later when James smelled it, he said "smells just like cuties!"

Supposedly, you aren't likely to have an appetite after surgery.  At least that's what the nurse told me.  But in the short recovery time we were there, Andrew had 2 popsicles, a glass of water and 2 bags of cracker snacks and he was still complaining about being hungry.  So, we stopped for his favorite mac & cheese on the way home. 

Once the bowl was in front of him, he dug in even though it was piping hot.  I've never seen him eat like this..  He didn't talk until he had finished the whole thing.  And then he asked for a cookie.  Where does he put all of this?!?! So much for not having an appetite.  Last bite and now he is officially a member of the clean plate club.

And now if we don't have to do anesthesia ever again, I'm more than okay with that.