I talked this hernia surgery up to Judah quite a bit. Back when I thought he was staying overnight I was calling it a "Hotel Hospital" and told him how we'd eat popcycles, read books, and watch movies together. The night before the surgery when we were giving him his bath before bed, Brian and I were discussing the surgery and one of us said something about where they are going to "cut him." He did a double take and said, "What? They are going to cut me?"
I normally take pride in being ultra honest and giving them all the information about doctor stuff and far in advance so they have no reason to fear the unknown and so they can trust me each time a new thing comes up that I have to explain. I guess I just dropped the ball here and never actually told him what exactly was going to happen. Brian took the lead here and explained what was coming. He started to panic and I thought for sure I should have done this long before to give him time to process it. However, he calmed down very fast and was amazingly brave going into surgery the next day. He's a bit of a Wild Card, and I never know how he's going to respond to things.
The nurses offered a sedative before taking him back into the OR since they don't let me go back there with him for the anesthesia part. He was being so calm and easy going about the whole thing that I turned it down and he was wide awake and alert when they wheeled him away from me through the big door to the operating room. He took his Grumpy Cat and his Polar Bear for comfort
We had a while to wait before and after the surgery, so I brought a special chapter book picked out just for him. I made the right choice. I read Mr. Popper's Penguins to him for the whole time we were waiting and after he woke up. I chose that book because it had short chapters, some pictures, and a whimsical story for my silly boy. We read most of the book before leaving the hospital around 1pm.
Thy told me he'd be sleepy all day and they were really wrong. He didn't sleep at all the whole day until I gave him his Oxycodone before bedtime. I turned on a movie when we got home to keep him still. I looked up from my work and he was hanging from the couch by his waist. He was a little hard to keep still and calm, but when three days later we went to the local Hutte to have dinner, at the playground there he followed all my guidelines about him not running, climbing, or hanging. He's not one to be THAT obedient about something when everyone else is getting to do it, so I think he did it because he was sore. I saw him trying to keep up with the big boys and walking behind them, yelling, "Hey guys, wait for me!" He never once said it hurt. The closest he got to saying it hurt was the second night when he woke me up saying, "Mom, it doesn't hurt, but it feels funny." I took that to mean that it did hurt a little and gave him more meds. Brian said he was like a puppy after surgery, because we couldn't keep him still so he could heal. However, as I write this about a month later, he is still being very careful pulling up his pants and wearing his pants extra high so that it doesn't touch his incision site. All in all he's been a tough cookie.
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