Now ear this: the play-by-play

So I got up at the crack of, well, not even dawn this morning at 5:30 a.m. and got ready, ate breakfast, then got Baby B up around 6:30 a.m. and got her dressed and ready to head out the door by 6:45 a.m. The Husband drove separately so he could go to work after the procedure, and we both arrived at the surgery center around 7:15 a.m. We got checked in, then waited to be taken back to pre-op.

We met first with the nurse, who asked a bunch of questions, outlined how things would go, then took Baby B’s temperature (98.1…whew!). She said we didn’t even have to change her out of her outfit since she wasn’t going to be getting an IV for the surgery (double whew!). The anesthesiologist came by next to talk with us, then the wait began. And continued. And continued. The surgeon, Dr. O (how he’s known to his patients since his last name is hard to pronounce), was held up at the hospital doing the tubes on the 2-month-old, so that put him behind on his schedule at the surgery center. Baby B became restless and was probably hungry (she hadn’t eaten in 12+ hours), but we did a pretty good job of keeping her entertained, mostly singing silly songs (so what else is new?). “The grand ol’ duke of York, he had 10,000 men. He marched them up to the top of the hill and marched them down again!”

Finally it was time for Baby B’s surgery. The anesthesiology nurse came to get Baby B, and she did a good job going to him without being sad about leaving us. Before walking away with her, he reassured us by saying, “She’s the most important person in the world to me right now.” I don’t think either of us were really nervous, but it was still nice to hear him say that. He walked back with her at 9:10 a.m.

We went to the waiting room (why the cable reception on the TV out there was fuzzy, I have no idea. Perhaps they’re stealing cable?), and we were called back eight minutes later at 9:18 a.m. to meet with Dr. O. He said the procedure had gone well, and he vacuumed up the infected fluid that was in there. We got some post-op instructions, and he said we’d be back in the office on March 13 to check her and give her a hearing test. We went back to the waiting room for a few more minutes and were called back just before 9:30 a.m. to meet up with Baby B. She was already awake and was squirming around in the lap of one of the nurses. We gave her a sippy cup of milk and some crackers, and she seemed to be doing well, even though she was a bit fussy and restless. We got our discharge instructions and a script for her antibiotic ear drops, then left the surgery center at 9 :45 a.m.

She fussed some on the way home, but seemed back to normal once we got inside. I gave her a waffle, which she ate most of, and I was surprised to turn my head for a few minutes and then turn it back to find her waving her pants in one hand (waffle in the other). I can’t believe it hadn’t happened before, but that was the first time she’s taken off her pants completely by herself. LOL We played a little while, then I made her some lunch, though she didn’t really eat much of anything except her yogurt with mango. (But, she’d just had her waffle an hour beforehand, so she might not have been very hungry.) She went down for her nap around 12:30 p.m. as usual, and she’s still asleep two hours later. We’ll continue to take it easy today, but it seems like things are going well so far.