Surgery Day

Today was Lukas' big day. He went in to get his tonsils and adenoids out as well as get tubes put in his ears. All in all he did very well and is now recovering.

I just want to say that I'm so glad I have Taylor. This whole thing would not have gone as well had he not been here to help advise me and help with Lukas.

I was told by the doctor a few weeks ago to just go to the hospital the day before surgery to get Lukas preadmitted. I don't recall him telling me to bring Lukas along, but they could have said something about it. I was planning on just going by myself, but Taylor convinced me to take Lukas with me. They did need to see the little guy so I'm glad I brought him along. The nurses there told me to put this numbing cream on the top of Lukas' hands an hour before we went to the hospital and gave me a kind of tape to put over the blob of cream to hold it in place. The cream was to numb his hands so they could put the IV in easily. I had planned on doing it while Lukas was still asleep since we had to be at the hospital at 7:15, so I set my alarm and went to sleep.

I got very little sleep last night. I couldn't stop thinking about today, what was going to happen, how it was all going to work out, how long it would take, how Lukas would respond, etc. When I did sleep, I dreamt about putting that cream on his hands and getting to the hospital over and over again. When the alarm went off, I dutifully got up and got ready to put that cream on his hands. He was fast asleep and I successfully got a good sized blob on one hand. I was in the process of putting that tape on his hand when he jerked and pasted a blob on his face, which then ended up on his blanket and from there he woke up really mad. I had to get him up and cleaned off to try again, and Taylor came to my rescue. He held Lukas' hands while I put all that stuff on them. Lukas wanted it off, but we convinced him that the doctor will need to take it off so he left them alone.

We made our way to the hospital, our whole family together. We got our room, got a nurse, and Lukas got his first dose of pain medication to help in getting the IV in his hand. I was doing fine, all the way up until the nurse was preparing and inserting the IV. I am not a fainting sort of person, but I had a really hard time dealing with them putting the IV in Lukas. I got real hot, sweaty, clammy, nauseous, and lightheaded. I finally told them I was getting faint and I had to leave the room to lay down somewhere. I was a little embarrassed since I am really not like that and I really wanted to be there for my son. After thinking about it though, I attributed it to the fact that I am pregnant, I haven't had much sleep for a few nights so I was very tired, and the stress of it all was getting to me. After I rested for a few minutes and calmed down, I was fine the rest of the time. They wheeled Lukas out and we waited.

The doctor came in a little while later and gave me a report. He said that Lukas did fine, that he had a lot of gunky fluid behind his ears, that both his adenoids and tonsils were huge, but now that they were gone Lukas should be a much happier kid.

They had warned us that some kids wake up from anesthesia angry, and apparently Lukas was one of those kids. They called me back to help calm him down and but he didn't get calm for a little while. He was a wild sort of angry. He tried his hardest to tear himself out of my arms and every time he got a look at the IV in his hand he got even more angry. The nurse tried hard to keep his IV hand away from him since he had already tried to tear it out a couple of times. The nurse finally gave him some more morphine and he eventually fell asleep in my arms. After that he was just a little confused at times but he calmed right down with some love.

We stayed in the hospital until about 1pm for observation. I didn't have any idea that we would be there for that long and I am so thankful that Taylor was there to help out. Lukas is now home and doing fine. He is asleep and not snoring, which makes this mommy happy. I'll know that all this drama was worth it when he's fully recovered although I think this whole ordeal was harder on me than Lukas.