Surgery Eve

JD has his surgery tomorrow - in the medical world, it's considered minor outpatient surgery. In our world, anything that involves putting your child under anesthesia is pretty major - regardless of what the doctors say. The planner that I am had been waiting all day to find out what time surgery was scheduled for - all the while remembering that we cannot give him anything to eat or drink (except for water) after midnight. I was praying for an early time so it would be as easy as possible on him. Finally, at 4pm I got the call - surgery is scheduled for 11:15 am. WHAT? That's almost lunch time! So they are expecting him to go without a meal from dinner the night before to lunch the following day - a 16 month old? Apparently so. He'll be getting a middle of the night bottle (shame on me) so that at least he has one last meal at the latest possible time.


Despite my begging for an earlier time, we're stuck with 11:15. That's what we get for going to a well sought out pediatric surgeon at Childrens in DC I guess. Since all of the patients are children, there are others in a worse predicament than we are who have the later times. As I was complaining and feeling my blood pressure rise when I hung up, I remember that there are probably very sick SMALLER babies ahead of us who need the surgery to save their lives or are in a much more critical place than JD is. We'll suck it up. I'm sure it will all work out just fine.


I was trying to take a photo today of JD that would show his cyst - it's hard to capture. In fact, some days it looks bigger than others; and it moves. So if you get it just right, it can look really big. And other days, you can barely see it. It's right at the edge of his left eye.


Surgery will last about 30 minutes and Dr. P is going to make a small incision in the eyebrow and pull it out there. That will minimize any scarring. This is a very common place for cysts like this because it is where the face plates fuse together when the baby is growing in utero. There is a small risk of infection if we were to leave it in there - but since it's growing and becoming very obvious (almost everyone asks if he bumped his eye), we elected to take it out. He will probably get a black eye from it but other than that, you won't even be able to tell. No outside stitches either - just some inside ones that will dissolve.


I'm trying to be a strong Mommy. Just hoping for a fast, flawless surgery and that we're in and out of there in a short time. Back again tomorrow with updates on the little guy.


And just for kicks, here's JD's ornery twin while I was trying to take a photo of JD's eye this evening - he's quite the entertainer these days & gets a big kick out of himself...


Thanks for all of the well wishes!