Most parents do not have the joy of seeing what their 10and 1/2 month old would look like drunk, or stoned if you will. However, we lucked out on that one. Yesterday was Maddie's Surgery on her clogged tear duct. We had to be at the hospital at 8:30, and she couldn't have anything to eat or drink past midnight the night before. THAT was very very hard, because you know that when we got there she was thirsty, hungry, and CRABBY.

Everyone was sooo sweet though. She was definitely the youngest patient that morning, so everyone was fawning over her. I was just a tad bit nervous about the whole putting her under thing until Dr. FeelGood (the anasthesiologist) came in. I recognized him as being the GOD who gave me my epidural for Maddie's delivery.

For those of you who don't know, not only did my best friend deliver her as a Labor and Delivery nurse, but she made sure I delivered on the day when the best "Dr. Feel Good" was in the house. And if you remember nothing about the day your children are delivered, you can certainly pick out of a crowd of a million the man who came and took your pain away. And from what I understand, without needing to know specifics, this man knows his shit.

So, when he walked into the room, I was relieved. They were going to try and operate without anything more than a happy gas mask, but due to the nature of the surgery and the size of the mask, they couldn't wing it with where the Dr. needed to get into her eye, so she was put under via IV general anasthesia and intubated. The hospital was good enough to do both of those when she wasn't with us anymore.

The nurses were very sweet. They came and gave her a sedative. When that kicked in (and oh, did it kick in), they wrapped my baby up in a blankie and carried her into the OR. The last thing I saw before she went in was her waving "bye-bye". Roughly 1/2 an hour later, her opthalmologist came in and told us all was well, she's awake and not happy about it, see you in a week.

We went in and found a nurse holding her and doing the "mommy sway". If you don't know what that is, I'm not going to explain it other than it's instinctual to mommy's when a baby is crying and in pain. Apparently, the use of general anasthesia made her agitated enough that when she came out of it, she got mad and threw her bunny/comfort item at the nurses. That's my girl. Give 'em hell, even when you're all doped up!

She continued to sleep, until I finally woke her, made her eat and took her home. We stopped on the way for a Frosty for her sore post-intubation throat. That couldn't have felt good. If they had a drive thru where you could get shots of any high shelf liqour, we would've stopped there too.

She slept comfortably most of the rest of yesterday, and today you'd never know she had surgery. Even her eye looks the same with discharge and goop, but we're putting on the antibiotic ointment so it doesn't get infected. Pray this worked, so she doesn't need 'further procedures".

And for fun...

Maddie before sedatives.....


Maddie after sedatives..... What a difference 10 minutes makes! I think they should give some version of this stuff to parents of the surgical babies. I certainly could've used it instead of the 22 cups of coffee I drank in the 1/2 hour she was in surgery.