Another hurdle jumped

Another hurdle jumped. It's been almost 2 weeks since my precious 5 year old underwent surgery for a ventricular hernia repair. The one hour outpatient surgery was delayed until late morning due to his first patient showing up late. So challening to reassure your child that "it's almost your turn and I know you're hungry". After a while, those words mean nothing. Finally, after being in two different waiting rooms for nearly 4 1/2 hours, we took the extremely long walk to the OR room. It was nice that I could accompany my son to the OR room and hold him until he was asleep. He was so incredibly brave. He didn't cry at all and cooperate with the mask and breathing in the "special air" that makes him sleepy. Leaving him in the OR with a complete strangers and just entrusting that they know what they're doing made me so nervous. That had to have been one of the hardest moments in my life. I wanted to desperately cry and felt a tear come down my cheek as I walked back to the waiting room to wait patiently with my husband. And the wait began. We were given a patient id number so we could view the progress on a monitor. We could see when he was brought into the OR and when the procedure began. We watched how other patients' status switched from "procedure began" to "procedure completed....patient exited OR...patient entered recovery". The one hour went to two hours and then some concerns. After checking with the control desk three times, we were finally informed that the tiny hernia was actually much larger and more extensive. I left my precious child at 12pm in the OR and at 5:07pm, finally his status switched to "procedure finished". I had such a huge relief come over me when I was told he was moved to the recovery room and we could sit with him while he was waking up. I'm a very patient person, but this 1 hour outpatient procedure we were told was just a little worse then a hang nail soon became an ulcer bearing stressful situation that turned in to over 5 hours in the OR and an overnight hospital stay. Grandma came up to the hospital when he was moved to his room in the Peds unit. She started crying at seeing how droopy his eyes were and the IV. I pulled myself together and rather then crying with her, I told her to suck it up. He's 5 and bravely walked into the OR and allowed the surgeons to do their job.If he was brave enough not to cry at all, then it wasn't ok for us either. She pulled it together and sat there in support. This was my third child that required surgery. My first son had surgery at 7 mos old to repair a club foot. My second son had surgery at 7 weeks old for Pyloric Stenosis. You'd think that after having these experiences that I was more prepared. I definately knew the routine of how it all was to go, but I expected it a little easier to leave him with the surgeons. It was though, by far, the most difficult one. I think it was because he was older and we had to explain to him what was going to happen. Reassure him he'd be just fine. When my other two boys were babies, they didn't know what was going to happen so I didn't have that part to deal with. It was still very difficult to hand them over to the surgeons. I think the difference was also seeing how incredibly brave my son was, not shedding a tear at all. I was so proud of him. He may never know just how proud I was and how brave he was.

He is on the road to recovery now. Despite this bump turned into a huge pothole with it being much more extensive, I reminded myself how lucky I should be that what he has it fixable. With time, he'll be just fine. That isn't the case with all of the children needing surgery. Maybe it's a cancer or a transplant and their immediate future is uncertain. I just tried to hold onto hope as I not so patiently waited for his procedure to be completed.

I know there is a lesson to be learned from this experience and it may be awhile before I figure it out, but for now-a lesson to you all....Love your kids unconditionally and don't ever take a single day for granted. I'm just as guilty as the rest-"oh I'm busy, we'll play this in a few minutes", but a few minutes takes days, weeks, or months to come. Take that moment to make a lasting memory. It's worth it!