My daughter likes going to Detroit for eye surgery. We’re not sure how we managed this feat but it has worked in our favor for a while now. She knows she can’t eat the morning of surgery and is patient about food, knowing she’ll have popsicles and graham crackers in the recovery area.
She’s well known on the surgical floor with nurses and other staff coming in to say hello and other, “weren’t you just here?” friendly welcoming comments. My daughter knows where the kitchenette play set is in the check-in area and spends her time making us food and drinks with plastic food until she’s called back to the pre-op room. Once there, she asks for the bin of Paw Patrol characters to play with. This time when we went back they knew already and the bin was already waiting for her on the bed.
She knows the process well, understand that everyone who interacts with her has to ask her birthday and scan her arm band she got at check-in. She knows we’re going to go over the “what medications is she currently taking? Does she have a cold or has she been sick recently? Does she have any allergies?” questions multiple times with each person we talk to.
She doesn’t like, but still will help by leaning her head back and pulling her lids down, the three rounds of very stinging drops she has to endure before she can go back to surgery. And every time she does this she gets amazed compliments from the nurse or other staff member about how helpful she is—apparently doing drops without a fight or crying.
And her birthday always, always, always gets comments. When confirming her identity everyone asks her name and birthday. My daughter was born on 11/11/11, which is a fun day to have as a birthday. People will exclaim, “what a fun birthday” or some similar comment and I always respond, “it was a great day, that’s for sure.” It’s happened so much that I’ve tried to see if I can say her birthday in a way people won’t make the connection like, “November eleventh, 2011” but people still notice. The interesting thing is my daughter has heard comments again and again but she’s never once made a comment back.
Sometimes she has someone come from the support group that helps keep children happy and entertained. This time she play with Emily for over an hour and Emily enthusiastically played her Paw Patrol imagination games. My daughter was very happy the entire time which brings us to the next part—going back for surgery.
They have been understanding that my daughter doesn’t want to wear their gown or their sticky socks that don’t fit. They let her go back in her clothes and she knows when it’s time to go back because (she told me yesterday), “I don’t go back until they all come in at once. And she’s right. Typically the nurse, anesthesiologist, surgical staff and doctor come in individually before she goes back for surgery and it’s one of the reasons we have an arrival time an hour-and-a-half before surgery time.
When the team arrives to take her back we’ve learned something from doing this so many times. They just ask her to go with them and she’ll walk back on her own, happily chatting with them about whatever they ask her.
Yesterday when Dr. Trese was talking to me after surgery he told me with a very endearing smile, “she is such a nice child. She raises the spirit of the OR when she comes in.”
The Big Boy Update: We didn’t get my son a Lego on this trip to Detroit. He got one from Nana yesterday so we got him an Avengers swimsuit. We hope he likes it.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter is very energetic and she loves to climb on anything. She was raising and lowering the chair in Dr. Trese’s office this morning and then jumping up and balancing on the chair arm. I tried to calm here but she was so happy and she was making all his fellows smile as well. Dr. Trese said, “you’re just trying to torture me, aren’t you?” I told him we were looking at investing in a padded room for her and he laughed and said he could see why.
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