Surgery Day - June 21, 2012 (Day 1)

I want to tell everyone that I am going to be writing about the whole experience day by day so here is the first installment...

June 21st - Our morning began at 3:45 am. That is the time I woke Spencer up to breast feed him. I did this because the babies are not allowed to have breast milk or formula later than 4 am (4 hours before surgery). Therefore I knew if I didn’t nurse him then he would be extremely hungry and irritable come 8:00 am. I put him back to bed and he had a good sleep which made me feel somewhat at ease. I got dressed, put the last minute items in my bag and waited. Finally, 6 am hit and I went to go wake Spencer up as it was time to leave. My stomach was in knots. Poor baby had no idea what today held for him but it was probably better this way. We made our way silently to Sick Kids Hospital. The roads were eerily quiet. We pulled into the sick kids parking lot and I felt absolutely sick to my stomach. After registering and waiting, they took us into the pre-op where they weighed Spencer, they checked his blood pressure, his heart, and his temperature and then they gave us a gown to get him dressed in. The gown was actually very cute. It looked like a little karate outfit. It made me smile just for a second. This was also the time where the nurse explained how the day would go. First, Dr. Philips and Dr. Drake would come out and talk to us then an anesthesiologist would come, make sure we had no other questions and then she would take him. They explained that literally a minute after he is taken from us he would be out. My biggest fear is that he would scream when they took him from me. Luckily, this was not the case. Steve and I were crying but the nurse who took him was wearing a really colourful head covering and he was engaged with that therefore he went through the doors to the OR smiling. I on the other hand almost passed out. I was feeling so sick that I almost wanted to run back and say “forget it, I changed my mind, I love him as is” but deep down I knew that this was going to be hard but also the best thing for him and his future. Then the real waiting began.

Spencer 10 minutes before surgery

What were we going to do for the next 5 or six hours? We first went into the surgical waiting room, where you register your cell phone numbers so that if any questions come up (which you hope they don’t) they can reach you.  They also give you a code, Spencer’s being Ka, S. They told us that there are boards in a number of places in the hospital where you can check on the surgery’s progress. For example, it says “In Waiting” or “In OR” or “Parents please come to surgical waiting room” or “In Recovery”. I watched Spencer’s name go round and round and it felt like it went on forever. I also took this time to go pump so that I would keep my milk supply up for him. This was difficult for me as I have never pumped before. I had to put my inhibitions aside and do this for him as well. The nurses were amazing about this, giving me a private room, with a TV , a pump and stickers with Spencer’s name on it, so that they know whose milk it is and what day and time it was pumped.

I tried to read, I tried to play the iPad but really nothing was really helping the time pass. It did eventually pass and then at the 4 and a half hour mark Spencer’s name completely disappeared and this scared the daylights out of me. Why did his name go off the board?  It didn’t say in recovery, it didn’t say parents come to waiting room. It just vanished. So Steve and I got up to get ready to run towards the other waiting room when my cell phone rang. It was the surgical waiting room asking where we were as the surgery was finished! I told them exactly where we were and as we were heading to the special waiting room we were met in the hallway by Dr. Philips. He said “the surgery was a great success. There were no surprises and no problems and I don’t foresee any in the future.” As he said these words we saw Spencer being wheeled out of the OR and straight to the CCU (Critical Care Unit) as is the common practice for this particular surgery. That is why his name disappeared off  the board. He does not go back to recovery he goes directly to CCU. We were then told we would be able to see him in 20 minutes after they have woken him up and got him settled into his room. A huge weight was lifted off my body immediately. But I still didn’t feel completely at ease. I needed to see him. Dr. Philips told us that this time will be the best time to see the results of the surgery as the swelling will not happen probably until morning. We quickly collected our stuff like the book I attempted to read, the computer Steve was watching some show on and we walked over to the CCU waiting room which was much nicer than where we had been the whole day. Anyhow, there again we waited. We waited, and waited. 20 minutes went by, then 30 then 45. I started to worry again that maybe something went wrong, or that they couldn’t wake him up. After an hour I was a complete wreck and I made Steve go ask a nurse what was happening. They gave us a number to call and we found out he was in fact fine but that they were moving someone else from a surgery into his room and had to wait for that person to be settled in as well.  Another 10 minutes and we got the call that we could go in. Spencer looked amazing. Like a new baby. His forehead was perfect, his eyes were perfect. He was groggy and sleepy but he knew my voice the second I walked in the room. I knew this because he looked right at me and tried to crawl towards me. I was so happy. I cried! He looked peaceful. Not as scary as I thought. The scar was barely visible as he has soooo much hair and they didn’t touch it at all. I don’t know how they even sutured it up like that but they did and they did an amazing job. The only thing really disturbing was the tube that he had in his head which is called the JP or Jackson Pratt drain which helps keep the swelling off the brain. I knew this would be there but still it is very different when you actually see it hanging off your child’s head. Again, I knew it needed to be there and frankly I got used to it. He also had a number of IVs which were obviously keeping him hydrated and a catheter. The nurse explained the reason for this was to monitor his fluids, his intake and output.

It was now, 2:30pm which felt like midnight. Seeing that Spencer was pretty much sleeping Steve and I decided that I should pump again and go to the 8^th floor and see if he had been assigned a room yet. To our amazement, he was already assigned a room therefore while I pumped Steve went and got our overnight bags and got settled into what would be our home for the next 5 days.

After I was done pumping I went back to CCU and just sat by Spencer’s side for the next few hours.