Sam's "procedure"

The boys were circumcised before being discharged from the hospital at 3 weeks of age. Since then, Sam has had many problems, including infections and adhesions. I won't get into any specifics to respect my guy's privacy! That being said, he had surgery today to fix the problem ...

His surgery was scheduled with a great pediatric urologist at the Children's Hospital, and we were very pleased to be there for the procedure. After being unimpressed by the local hospital where he had his ear tube procedure, we were pleased to be at the hospital that specializes in caring for children.

The staff at CCMC is wonderful and made the process much less nerve-wracking than it could have been. We had to be there at 7:10, procedure was scheduled for 8:40. Mimi and Peepaw came down yesterday afternoon and were at the house bright and early to stay with Ben. Sam was unable to eat after midnight, and thankfully slept a bit late this morning, and we were able to distract him from wanting his milk.

Sam was excited to be out with Mom and Dad, but kept asking for Benny Man. All of the toys and games were a nice distraction in the pre-op area, but after registration, Sam decided he'd had enough and just wanted to go home. A combination of Dad's Blackberry and Mom's rocking and singing lulled him off to a light sleep, and we were ready for surgery. I got to go into the OR with him, just like when he had tubes, although it was much harder with a 2 year old than an 11 month old -- because him crying, "Mommy, no, no, Mommy!" when they put the mask on his face broke my heart, and of course, made me cry, too.

At the Children's Hospital, there is a great family waiting area for the surgical unit, and the Husband and I camped out in a corner of the room, him with his laptop and me with a book that I pretended to read. There was an electronic monitoring board that detailed where each patient was -- so we could track Sam while he was in the OR, when he was moved to recovery, etc. Surgery was supposed to take between 30 and 45 minutes, according to our pre-op nurse. After sitting in the waiting room for an hour and 10 minutes, I started to get beyond anxious, and as the silent tears started streaming down my face (thanks to the kind mom sitting a few chairs away who handed me a stack of tissues!), Husband realized that I was minutes away from a panic attack, so went to check. The nice volunteer in the family room went back to check on Sam, and came back and said that he was out of the OR, but was very slow to wake up from the anesthesia. Lovely. My mom has issues with anesthesia, I got very worried that Sam did, too! We waited for probably another 15 minutes, and then got called back to see him in PACU (post-anesthesia care unit). I walked behind the curtain and burst into tears -- his tiny body in that big bed, the IV in his hand, the pulse-ox monitor, the screens, the alarms -- waaaaaaay too reminiscent of the NICU days. The girl in the bed next to Sam kept de-stating, and her oxygen monitor kept chiming - NICU PTSD strikes again! The nurse was so nice, said, "I've stood in your shoes. And did the same thing." Which was nice -- instead of making me feel like a freak. We sat with him, and he woke up after about 40 minutes. He was pretty upset when he woke up, and his father held him for a bit. We switched off to change him from his hospital clothes, and he snuggled right into me, I wrapped him in his blanket, sang him some songs, and was just so relieved that this whole procedure was done. It's hard not to think that something has gone horribly wrong when the minutes keep ticking by past what you were told to expect -- and I was just so grateful to snuggle the little guy, smell his hair, and just be with him after this was finished. He drank some pedia-lyte, they took out his IV (he did NOT like that, no surprise there), and the urologist came to talk to us. The doctors usually talk to the parents before they go back into PACU, but the nurses were so nice and let us go back early when they heard that I was teary waiting to see Sam. Urologist said everything went as expected, the problems should be remedied with the surgery, and Sam should recover well. He has about 10 to 12 stitches in his penis (poor guy!), but they are thankfully self-dissolving so we don't have to deal with having those removed! Even swollen, and black and blue and bloody, it looks so much better than it did before, and I will be glad that the infections/fissures/adhesions will be a thing of the past.

We got discharged and we were home around 12:30. Husband had to go to work, and because my parents were here, I was able to really focus on Sam. He had "caudal anesthesia" (like an epidural, but instead of from chest down, it is from the butt down) in addition to the general, so his pain management was great, but he couldn't walk! He was pretty loopy from the narcotics, and after his first dose, spent a good amount of time walking in circles around the kitchen table. My parents will be here for another 2 days, and it is wonderful that Ben has all the attention from my mom that he could possibly want. My sister broke her leg when she was 3 (and I was 7), and then, several weeks later, cut her face very, very badly on a soda bottle that exploded (and severed an artery in her face and needed 30ish stitches) -- and I remember how badly I felt for her, but how very left out I felt from the whole process -- and with my mom here to focus ONLY on Ben, I think it has eased a bit of that for him.

I'm so thankful to have healthy children, my heart aches for the parents in the surgical waiting room who were dealing with such serious issues.