All Tubed Up

Well, we survived the surgery this morning. Actually, TORI survived.
Thank you God.
She was a trooper! (As usual)**
We woke up at 4:30am to get ready to head down there.
A bit of the "airport anxiety" earliness applied here, too.
We got to the Outpatient Surgery Center at about 5:45am. Filled out some paperwork. And then waited. And waited. Meanwhile, entertaining a 21-month old girl with everything we could think of.

The hospital gave her a cute little stuffed bear. That was exciting for all of 2 minutes.

Then she moved on to the hospital phone and magazines. That held her attention for about 10 minutes!

Then it was on to Daddy's cell phone.... until she started calling people at the ungodly hour, so we had to take it away.

Really, we were just tired. No one should have to wake up that early. Ever.
(notice my watch says it 6:25am-- it's ten minutes fast, so really it was 6:15am)

Lovin' on my tired girl.

Finally, about 6:40, a nurse came out and ushered us back into the pre-op area. There was some discrepancy with the scheduled start time of the surgery. Our paperwork said 7:30am, but the hospital's paperwork said 7:00am. So we were kind of hurrying up just in case it was 7:00am, but thinking it was more likely 7:30.

We then began the fun game on entertaining a 21-month old in a HOSPITAL BED. We had a sweet nurse name Kai, mother of two little ones herself, who was super flexible in letting us get up and walk around.

It was very apparent that they'd entertained children once or 3 million times before.

They had puzzles. And stickers.

And bless nurse Kai, she let Tori's baby doll get her bold pressure taken too. So cute.

And the oxygen mask was a big hit. Baby doll got in on that action, too, although we didn't get a shot of it.

All of the staff was SO KIND to us. And everyone enjoyed Tori's joyful spirit. She definitely provided some much needed smiles to all of the other anxious patients waiting for their surgeries.

And then FINALLY, at 7:29 and 47 seconds, the doctor performing the surgery casually saunters in, as if it's no big thing. It probably was God's way of answering prayers, because by that point, I was more annoyed and frustrated than I was anxious. We had been there for almost 2 hours, and I was ready to get this thing over with already.

So we handed her off, which didn't seem to bother her at all. And about 25 minutes later, the doctor came to get Bill and I from the waiting room. Everything went smoothly, and the tubes were in. He mentioned that she had a lot of "thick fluid" behind her eardrums, which is just further confirmation that we made the right choice to proceed with the surgery.

She was really upset when we got to her-- lots of crying, and her body was sort of weak and limp-- but it only took about 25 minutes for her to come out of it. And I think the apple juice with a straw that the nurse brought was what helped her turn the corner. :) (Poor thing had not eaten or had anything to drink since 6:00pm the previous night. And this is my voracious eater!)

We got home at around 9am. She napped from then until 11. By noon, she was back to her feisty little self.

Thank you, Lord, for protecting my sweet Tori.

*Thanks to Grandma for letting us borrow her camera. Ours is in a permanent state of disrepair. :)

**I failed to mention that last week during her pre-op appointment, she had to have blood drawn at the lab. We had just come from the pediatrician's office, where she had a shot and didn't so much as blink. In fact, she smiled. The nurse couldn't believe it. So, we're in the lab and the lab tech's are all planning their strategy of how best to draw blood from her little arm. One tech said to the other "I'll hold her here, you hold this arm, and Mom, hold her body and her head really tight and don't let her move." I replied, "I'm not sure that is necessary... she's pretty tough..." But I followed their instructions anyway. And true to form, Tori didn't even flinch one bit. She watched the needle go in, she watched when they switched out the viles, and when they were all done, SHE LAUGHED. One tech looked at the other and said, "Did she just laugh?!? I think she just laughed!!!" That's my tough cookie. :)