*Warning that this is a long drawn out post. I wanted to write it all down though while it was fresh in my mind for posterity sake. The short version is Kai had some surgery yesterday and is doing fabulous today.
Yesterday we had quite the adventure. Kai (knock on wood) has always been a pretty healthy kid. We've had the occasional flu or cold, but never have gotten in to anything much more serious. He even just had his first ear infection this Spring. When he was born he did have a bit of a
blocked tear duct. For about the first 10 months of his life he would get an occasional goopy or teary eye. It was more of a pain for us in regards to appearance than anything else, but we tried to be diligent about massaging it and doing the things they recommended. If they don't clear up by the time a kid is a year old then they take more aggressive measures. But sure enough Kai's suddenly seemed to clear itself up right before the 1 year mark. Here is a photo from when he was little that shows an extreme left eye day:
Since then it has been perfect with the rare exception of when we are outside in extreme sun or wind. At that time we have occasionally seen some tears escaping down the left side of his face. Anyway, at his 2 year old regular doctor appointment I mentioned it to his pediatrician and she suggested that we go have it checked out by a pediatric eye doctor. So this past Fall we had that appointment and that doctor basically said that his tear duct in his left eye was still partially blocked and would just be like it was from here on out with the rare tearing.
So we were left with the decision to leave well enough alone and just let him deal with a teary eye a few times a year when he's in more extreme sun/ wind conditions or have an outpatient surgery procedure done where they stick a probe in the duct and open it up. So we debated it this Winter and then finally decided about a month ago that we wanted to give him the opportunity to not have to deal with it as he gets older. We think boating, skiing etc. are likely to be a big part of his life as he grows up and hope doing this will make it less annoying for him. Plus the surgery is supposed to have a better success rate for kids than adults and help with avoiding infections later in adult life.
So I called a few weeks ago to set it up and traded phone calls for a few weeks. Then on Monday I finally got through and they said the doctor had a sudden opening for THIS Thursday. My experience with these kind of specialty doctors and surgery procedures is you usually have to wait for months so I was shocked. So yesterday we headed to
Children’s Primary Hospital which is an awesome hospital about 10 minutes from our home. I have often thought how great it is to have this highly renowned children’s hospital so close to where we live just incase. It is the kind of thing you never want to have to use, but are glad to have so close. Any major kid trauma cases etc. in the Mountain West they bring to this hospital.
So the conclusion is Kai ended up doing great. He thought the hospital was the greatest because there were fun toys, bubbles, little cars to drive, elevators decorated like a train or zoo and on and on. Really they do a great job making it kid friendly and fun. When it was time for him to be taken in (which was the part that was stressing me out the most) he gave me a kiss and happily skipped away with the nurse to see what fun things would be in the next room of this great place. Here are 2 pictures of him showing how much he loved it right after we put on his little gown:
The surgery seems to have gone well. The first couple of hours in the recovery room were a little challenging due to the fact that he was feeling a bit sick to his stomach from the anesthesia. He never actually threw up though which was great. They don't let you go home until you drink a good amount. Thankfully after awhile I was able to convince him to stay awake and try a hospital slurpee. His response before he downed the entire thing was "Mmm that's yummy." The nurse also asked him if we wanted some apple juice, water, or sprite. You've never seen a kid answer Sprite so quickly. That is a big treat around our house for Kai.
As we were leaving Kai said a couple of funny things. He said to the nurse "Could you please help me take this thing off?" in reference to his IV. And "Could you please bring me a wagon?". Instead of using wheelchairs to take the kids out to the car in they pull them in Radio Flyer Wagons. He had seen some of the other kids already making their exits. And then as he is being pulled out in the wagon he says to all nurses who are waving bye "Thank you for the slurpee. I like the red one, not the orange one".
So, we came home and rested and played the rest of the afternoon and night. We even went out and got a real 7 Eleven Slurpee per the doctors suggestion. They have to put a tube down the kids throats during the surgery so their little throats can be soar for awhile afterwards. We laughed that if Kai was a bit older he might have asked the doctor to put that in writing since he LOVES cherry slurppy. This morning he seems totally back to his old self- laughing, running around, and playing make believe.
I am glad to have that behind us. I probably spent a bit more time growing up than the average person in doctor’s offices/ hospitals/ emergency rooms with my sister. They are never a great place to be, but I do think that probably made a pretty potentially scary experience yesterday a little more manageable. All in all it seems that the whole experience was probably still harder on us than on Kai. This morning he told me he wanted to go back to eye doctor and drive those cars again and I said no thank you.
