My Sweet Little Loopy Girl

Awhile back I had blogged about Kaya needing to see an ENT for her recurrent ear infections. She saw the ENT and what we learned was that Kaya is absolutely terrified of doctors now and even more afraid of the otoscope! Basically at the first appointment, Kaya's screaming and a whole bunch of ear wax made it pretty impossible for the doctor to see what was going on in the ears. So after two weeks of ear drops meant to loosen up wax she went back for a hearing test to measure the fluid in her ears and another check of her ears by the doctor. Both were a failure. Again, too much screaming. So they determined that it would be best to put her under general anesthesia to check her fluid and then if it was indeed a problem, they'd be ready to put tubes in at the same time. That was today.

I took the day off of babysitting to take Kaya in to the surgery center while Kalen stayed behind to have the "easier" job of getting all the kids off to school. ("You do this EVERY DAY?, he asked me when I got home. Yes. Yes I do.) We arrived at the center at 6 a.m. (nothing like yanking your sleeping baby out of bed at 5:15 in the morning) and they called us back to the room at 6:30. Kaya immediately recognized that she was in a medical facility and began crying. They got us all checked in and asked me the exact same questions that they asked me on the phone for pre-registration yesterday. We got Kaya into her little hospital gown and then the anesthesiologist came in to ask me the same questions again. But he gets points anyway because he pronounced Kaya's name right.

Then came the fun part. They brought Kaya her little pre-surgical cocktail of medication and told me in about five minutes I'd see a difference in her behavior. Sure enough, it kicked in when they said it would. Kaya went from tense and fussy to very relaxed and thinking everything was hilarious. I was bouncing a beanie lion they gave her on my lap and Kaya was watching and laughing like it was the funniest thing ever. Then I noticed a speck on Kaya's nose and said "You've got something on your nose there." Kaya responded by putting her finger on her nose and saying "BEEEEP!" I laughed and she did it again. I laughed again and so she stuck her finger right up inside of her nose and then she laughed. It was just so funny to watch her getting more and more loopy and silly. By the time they came to take her she was really, really mellow and went right to the anesthesiologist without a fuss.

I went back to the waiting room and about 15 minutes later the doctor came and said they were done. She did have lots and lots of fluid and so they went ahead with the tubes, but everything went great. A few minutes later they came to tell me she was waking up. When I got back there she was very cranky, which they said nearly always happens when kids come out of general anesthsia. While I was trying to get her to calm down, the nurse came over to take the blood pressure cuff off of her leg and when she did, Kaya stopped crying for one second, touched her nose and said: "BEEEP!" then started crying again. Silly kid. They let us go right after that. Kaya cried the whole way home and was fussy for about half an hour after that. I was rocking her hoping to get her to nap when suddenly she wiggled off of my lap and said: "Done!" and so she was. She's been playing and happy the rest of the day and now is finally taking a long overdue nap. And now so will I.