Surgery Over, Home

Just about 9 hours after leaving the house we are home.

Just one pet peeve of the day - why do you tell us to get there 2 hours early and then let us sit in the waiting room for 45 minutes before even admitting us? Backed up? At 7:30? When we were the only ones there (ok - there was initially one other family there?) I just don't get it.

Rebekah was an absolute trooper. She went right into the day surgery room, directed the nurse where she wanted her IV, requested hot blankets, tell the nurse that she wanted to ride downstairs on the cot etc. Once downstairs (in pre-op) she kept asking for the "sleepy boo boo medicine doctor" to come out and put "sleepy milk in her tubes." After a bit of a wait the dentist and the anesthesiologist came into pre-op, put her out and off she went to the operating room.

Skipping forward a few hours. Doc came and got me and told me that things were a bit worse than she had hoped for and instead of taking out 1 or maybe 2 teeth they ended up needing to take out 6 from various places around her mouth. The nice thing is that they didn't fracture the jaw as they expected might happen.

After some time in the recovery room and then some more up in day treatment, we were finally released to go home. It was not without effort however as Rebekah wanted to leave but also didn't want to drink from a cup. If she wouldn't drink from a cup they were going to make sure she got a full bag of IV fluids before she could go. Finally the desire the leave won out over the obstinance of not wanting to drink and she drank enough to make the nurse happy. We were out the door in the wheel chair (making Rebekah very happy) and she slept much of the way home in the van. We are now home and EVERYBODY is tired.

The future with regard to her teeth is not looking very bright and she is basically going to loose everything she has as her baby teeth fall out. She will need full implants, bridges, etc. if she is going to have any teeth. And of course those are going to need to be changed out as she grows. Ugh.

A quick funny about the day. Rebekah started collecting things - medical things. Everyone she saw she would ask for a roll of tape, a glove, an IV band, a kleenex, etc... She ended up the day with a bio-hazard bag full of these things and upon which one of the nurses felt the need to write "DO NOT THROW AWAY" and put one of Rebekah's hospital stickers on it. I'm not sure what her impetus was, but she has lots of memories of the day that she won't remember a whole lot of because of the drugs that were given to her.

Thank you for your prayers and support and thank you for those that joined me at the hospital for our first major event without mommy. It was all very helpful and heart-felt.