On Wednesday morning we got up and left the house super early (4:30am) because we had to be checked in at the big Wake Med by 5:30am. Camp never really knew what was going on other than he was going back to see the doctor and he was going to look in his mouth again.
From the moment we arrived they were great with him. He was so proud of the bracelet they gave him, but he couldn't quite figure out how to play the games on the iPod with the oxygen monitor on his finger. : )
Look how handsome he looked in his gown. ; )
Oh, the marvelous beeper. I only had to wait with it for a little while so I can't even imagine the great anticipation my friend Katie had waiting with it for months to go off for her daughter, Leah, to get a new heart. I almost felt like my life depended on this beeper. We received it when we arrived and every time it was time for something new to happen it would go off.
The boys feel asleep as we waited in pre-op for his turn but this momma's heart was too heavy to sleep. All I wanted to do was pray over my sweet baby.
They had all sorts of activities to keep him busy while we waited. He loved the bubbles!
Then a child specialist came in and helped explained to him about the oxygen mask so he wouldn't be anxious about using it. She showed him his mask and asked him if he would like to decorate it. She also had two tubes of chap stick and asked him which smell he liked better. He chose the strawberry so she wiped some all inside his mask for him to smell. (GREAT idea!) Then she gave him his favorite stickers to decorate the outside. I thought this was a great activity for him. Brilliant.
After we finished the mask she gave us markers to decorate his bed for surgery. It was so great to be able to write special notes for him and know they would be with him during surgery.
After we finished coloring they came in to give him his medicine to relax him before the surgery began. Once he drank all the medicine down the child specialist came back in with special gifts for him for being such a big boy.
Camp was so proud of his telescope and the Doc Hudson car from the Lightening McQueen movie!
You can start to tell from this second picture that it didn't take long for him to get VERY loopy. It was hilarious to us because one minute he was completely fine and the next he was drunk as a skunk.
We were sitting there on the bed talking to him and the next thing we knew he fell face forward down on the bed. It really made the moment they came and rolled him away a lot easier on this momma. The Lord knew I needed that laugh before they took my baby away.
Once they rolled him away they sent us out to the waiting room with the beeper and said they would beep us as soon as he was done and we would be able to go see him shortly after. They had told us it would probably take 30 minutes to an hour so Benjamin ran down to grab us some breakfast. We hadn't eaten anything that morning because Camp couldn't have anything to eat or drink since midnight so we didn't want to eat in front of him. SIX minutes from the time I sat down I turned around and the doctor is in the waiting room looking for me. I didn't know what to think. Had something gone wrong with the anesthesia? Why didn't they beep me?
The answer was No. He was already DONE! He said it was as simple as snipping the mass off and he didn't even have a stitch. Praise the Lord.
He planned to send the mass off to be tested but felt like it was completely benign and we would find out the results at our post-op appointment.
The nurses had prepped us that in recovery Camp might cry as he is waking up from the anesthesia so to be prepared for that as we saw him. When the nurse came and got us I could hear him screaming as I walked through the doors. She said he was pretty upset and we could do what we could to calm him but it would take about 20 minutes for him to be able to focus and look at us. What he was doing was a natural waking up from the anesthesia.
It was so hard to see my boy like that. He was screaming and fighting anyone who tried to hold him down. Benjamin had to sit and bear hug him to keep him from hurting himself or hitting his head on the chair. It took him about 45 minutes from the time we got back there to calm down enough that he would let me hold him, talk to him, and he would groggily respond.
Once he got to that point we were able to change his clothes and let him drink a little juice. His sweet nurse in recovery gave him this little bear to take home as a souvenir for having such a big day.
One huge blessing of the whole day is that Camp NEVER once complained of his mouth hurting. Not that day, the next or any other day. He doesn't even recall most of the day anyway because this is how he spent it. : )
Notice his cars held tightly in each hand.
He is all boy. : )
Once he woke up he was so eager to get up and play but his balance was super unsteady. We had to force him to crawl and at one point put him in Dawson's walker to get around. It was quite funny. : ) However, once he got up the next morning he had regained his balance and was completely back to normal.
I am so thankful that this day went as smoothly as it did and eagerly await the results at the post-op appointment.
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