Surgery Day

All done! Cupcake was amazing. And so were her brothers who had no choice but to come along for the ride today. We left the house at 7:45 to deliver The Spark & Princess Eee to their schools with everything they needed for potentially long after school playdates and arrived at the hospital at 10:15 just as we had been told to do. Cupcake was not allowed anything to eat or drink after bedtime last night, so she was hungry and held it together better than I could have ever imagined. She only got mad that I wouldn't give her a snack two or three times and none of those erupted into fierce Cupcake style shit-fits. Unfortunately for us, the kid who was scheduled before her WAS given something to drink after the madatory fasting, so the doctors had to wait to take him til it was safe to put him under which meant that poor Cupcake had to wait even longer despite having parents who followed the rules.

She was really incredible. Much braver than I could have been. Since she surprised me so much, I now have no idea how any of the other kids would act in a similar situation. The anesthesiologist was very nice and thorough and seemed very clued in to dealing with such a peanut patient. (Cupcake weighed in at only 29 pounds by 12:15 when they finally took her back to begin. I guess with skipping breakfast she probably wasn't big enough to ride to the hospital in her booster seat rather than toddler seat. Who knew?!) They gave her "silly juice" otherwise known as Versed to relax her enough to take her out of my arms and behind doors where I wasn't allowed to go. Had she freaked they said I could go with her but she was stoic. She cried for me a little bit while they got her little gas mask situated and the IV set, but the nurse anesthetist showed her a photo of her two Asian, adopted kids to distract her and after that she was asleep.

All dental work was completed without any trouble. The boys were wonderful with Cupcake when they got to come back to the recovery room and for the rest of the evening too. I heard #1 tell her how proud he was of her and how much he loved her as he was sitting with her to make sure she didn't flop off the couch while I made her a smoothie for dinner. And The Spark was jumping up to get her anything and everything she might want or need all evening. Very sweet.

Seeing her tiny little body all wrapped in blankets with the mask over her face when I went to the recovery room to wait for her to wake up was heart breaking. She was so tiny in the bed. In the photo too, she looks like a newborn baby. She slept for a nice long stretch and woke up calmly and very groggy. She could barely eat the popsicle the nurses brought to her without dozing off. She slept the whole ride home, had three glasses of banana-strawberry smoothie, threw some of it up, listened to me read her favorite book, and is now sleeping soundly again. The doctors & nurses all told us she'll be back to her normal self by tomorrow, so hopefully she'll wake up with her regular zest happy to have the offending tooth long gone, her two new bright shiny silver teeth, and some cash from the Tooth Fairy.

Here she is still asleep but in the recovery room. Looking so tiny!

First wakeful moments with a sore mouth. She was bummed that it didn't feel completely all better yet. Baby JuJu was with her the whole time. They even had a mini gas mask for JuJu.

Trying to eat her popsicle without falling back asleep.

Smoothies, applesauce, soup, & popsicles for the weekend. No sutures plus dissolving "gel" packing in the hole make for easy post-op instructions. So no follow-up dental visit. The dentist said the enamel on all four of those teeth (her 4 y.o. molars not the 2 y.o. ones like I had originally thought) was mal-developed and the rest look fine, so should be an isolated problem that is now all taken care of. Phew!