Adventures in Children's Hospitals

Oh, it has been a long few days.  My stack of unreturned call messages is threatening to take over my desk, and I have a deadline today.  The little angel screamed and clung to my leg today when she realized she must return to the Emerald City after two days with Grandma and Mama.  I think she thought the Endless Summer had begun.  Life is cruel.

On Wednesday morning, we all got up at 5:45 a.m. to get to the hospital on time.  The little angel was a bit apprehensive as we pulled up to the children's hospital. We parked by the giant butterflies stuck to the entrance.  I pondered them upon our approach.  That's the right thing to do, of course:  Teach children that bad things are first marked by giant butterflies.  Butterflies = unexplained pain.  Ooh-rah.

I have to admit, though, the fact it was a children's hospital helped a lot.  The pre-op room, where the little angel changed into her orange gown (yes, it tied in the back, even for babies) had lots of toys, a bubble machine, and a bunch of toddler-sized plastic cars - the kind you usually see attached to grocery carts.  We immediately plopped the little angel in one of them and started driving her around the pre-op room. There were about seven other toddlers, who all looked longingly at her car.  The other parents plopped all their kids in the other cars, and soon the pre-op room looked sort of like 435-West on a Friday afternoon. 

This routine got old in about ten minutes, so we moved on to books, then toys, then just screaming as we waited the hour and a half before they called her name.  The entire surgery only took about ten minutes, but I still found myself sobbing into the December issue of Parents magazine in the waiting room.  When they called our name, we walked into the hall, where we heard the little angel wailing.

They handed her to me, and I thought she might have had a lobotomoy instead of ear tubes.  She was moaning and writhing and crying big crocodile tears.  She didn't even seem to realize we were there.  She cried all the way home and for about a half-hour more, until she realized the barnyard version of Baby Einstein was playing.   Halfway through that, she fell asleep in my arms, and when she woke up, she was the normal little angel again.  We snuck into her room at 11:30 p.m. and 3:30 a.m. to give her Tylenol, but she still woke up at 4 and 5 a.m.,  just to check for butterflies.