Children's Hospital

We love Children's Hospital here in Boston. Not that we like having to go there, because of course we'd rather not, but because every time we have been there it has been as positive an experience as we could wish for.

Today Clara had her tubes put in. We had to be there at 6:30 am for an 8 am surgery, which meant leaving the house before six. She wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything, and I was worried about the wait and how she would take it. She had a few spells of heart-wrenching crying after she dug around in my backpack and realized there were no snacks to be had, but other than that she was fine.

It was a strange experience to hold her while they gave her the anesthesia and watch her fall asleep. Less than twenty minutes later I was by her side again when she violently startled and woke up (the nurse thought she was going to fall off the bed). I gather that is normal, but it was a bit spooky. She had a tough time coming out of the anesthesia, crying and acting completely disoriented. We tried to get her to drink, but for a 1/2 hour she wanted nothing to do with any liquids. I finally got her to take some apple juice from a syringe and she sucked down a few ounces in that manner only to immediately throw it up all over both of us.

By the time I got her home, though, she seemed fine. She drank and ate and walked around acting pretty happy. This afternoon she napped and tonight she seemed back to normal.

The surgeon said she removed a lot of thick fluid from behind her ears, especially her left one. So I am glad we did the surgery. I imagine I am hearing new sounds and words from her already. She seems to actually be saying "Lee" tonight instead of "ee," and I swear she said "puzzle." Ok, maybe it was "bubble," but it was definitely a new word!

In some odd way it was nice to be back at Children's today. We haven't been there since our visits last summer (when Lee had her last urinary reflux test and Clara a cardiology checkup). I always leave feeling incredibly grateful that my kids have problems that are minor and/or fixable, because you see plenty of kids where that is not the case. When I mentioned this to one of the nurses today she said "I'm so glad you see that. Not everyone does."