Zach's No-Go Sugery

Or How I Wasted My Day for Nothing.

Zach had a surgery scheduled for yesterday morning at the local Children's Hospital to fix his undescended right testicle. He's been on the waiting list since January and we got bumped up from June as they had a cancellation.

The girls' went to my Mom's for the night, so that Keith didn't have to worry about getting Violet to the bus on time, as he had his final exams to write as well. I also had the foresight to pack everything the night before (for me and for Zach), so that all I had to do in the morning was grab some coffee, grab my bag, put Zach in the car seat and head on our way.

Thankfully he was scheduled for 10am, but it also meant that we had to leave the house by 7am as we had to be there by 8:30am to do registration and pre-op. It usually takes me about an hour to get to that hospital, but with it being a Monday morning (and hitting morning rush), I gave myself extra time. And good thing I did. I got stuck behind a train for 10 minutes and hit some slow moving traffic as well. I did manage to get there, find really good parking, run through the hospital and make it to the registration desk with 10 minutes to spare.

We got instructions on how to get to the Children's Wing, registered there, and then waited a bit more. They took his vitals, I got him changed into his gown and then we waited some more. By this point I thought that he'd be screaming his head off because he hadn't eaten or drank anything since last night, but he was still chilling and calm. So grateful for that.

The OR Nurse came to get us shortly after, walked us down to the OR Waiting Room, talked with me a bit on what was going to happen. Also had a short talk with his surgeon and then the OR Nurse came back to take him away. I almost cried handing him over, but I also knew that he needed his Mommy to be strong when he went in there.

Once he was in, I parked my stroller in the waiting area and then went to grab some food, as I hadn't really eaten anything all morning. Thankfully I was able to find the food court, grab something to eat and drink, and make my way back. Although I did have a moment of panic trying to get back to the waiting room. The doors I had to go through were locked, and I had some slight anxiety about getting back to Zach. Thankfully I found a nurse who was able to let me through the doors and I could get back to the OR Waiting Room.

About 15 minutes after getting back, I saw Zach's surgeon come up to me with a sad look on her face. I automatically had a bad feeling about this. She sat down and explained to me that they were not able to do Zach's surgery, due to not being able to get an IV in him. Apparently they tried with 2 different anesthesiologists, and an ultrasound machine, and even with 15 needle pokes all over his arms and legs, they couldn't get an IV going. They said that they could draw blood, but not get the IV catheter in. They had only put him under about half-ways, so they said that they would come get me once he started waking up. The surgeon also started that he does need the surgery done, as she tried to get it down, but it was tucked up really high, and the longer it stays up, the more chances of damage being done to it.

The surgeon had a couple reasons as to why it was so hard to get an IV going. One being that he is a small chubby boy, who has fat arms and legs. Another one being that he is dehydrated, as he hadn't drank anything since last night and he's been fighting taking a bottle and not drinking as much as he should be. Since taking him off of nursing 2 weeks ago, he's been fighting the bottle ad refusing to drink anything. Now we have a big goal to work on before he comes in again.

They came to get me about 5 minutes later, saying that he was starting to wake up. I followed the nurse to the Recovery Room, and I could hear him screaming bloody murder from the hallway. Apparently he woke up mad and ready to fight. I quickly parked my stroller, went over to him and they passed him to me to calm him down. He was so mad and ticked off, that he didn't really know what he wanted. It took me almost 15 minutes of walking around and rocking him back and forth to calm him down enough that he quit screaming. Once he quit crying, I was able to put him into the stroller and one of the nurses took us to a room on the side so that I could feed him and try to get him to drink from a bottle. Again, he outright refused the bottle (no surprise there), but he ate a small container of applesauce and a food pouch. So at least he got something in him.

I talked with the nurse a bit more and she suggested to try giving him the bottle multiple times a day, and hopefully he'd get the hint that he needs to drink. They're going to reschedule him for July and hope that it gives enough time for him to start drinking and get hydrated.

Once we were cleared to leave, we headed home. It had been a long day, and disappointing to say the least.