Kaiser can suck it

Dylan had a minor surgery this morning. He has what is called "tongue tied" so they were going to just snip the frenulum (the part of the mouth that attaches the tongue to the bottom of his mouth.) They had to completely anesthetize him to do it. And I'm so grateful because when the surgeon got in the OR, he realized that Dylan's tongue was more "tied up" than he thought. He actually ended up cutting part of the bottom of Dylan's tongue, which then meant that he needed to stitch it up.

I'm grateful for the surgeon. He was so nice and capable and the anesthesiologist too. They both were so cute to Dylan and held his hand and pretended his little bed was a choo choo as they wheeled him off to the OR.

The recovery part is a different story. I was standing in the hallway and could hear Dylan screaming after his surgery. But nobody came to get me for another 10 minutes. When I finally came in, Dylan was freaking (for lack of a more severe word) and so disoriented. I just wanted to get him out of there and snuggle up on the couch with a Thomas movie.

But the recovery nurse obviously had never dealt with a child before because she was just standing staring at me unsuccessfully trying to calm Dylan down. Finally I said, "What are we waiting for?" She said, "Oh, I'm just waiting for him to calm down so I can take the probes off."

Uh, hello. I'm pretty sure he's so delusional from the anesthesia that he's not going to calm down any time soon.

Finally she took the probes off after I explained to her that the freak out was going to continue for a while.

Then I asked if he had been given any pain medication. She said, "oh, I don't think so. But we don't have any here right now. You can pick it up at the pharmacy." Fine. Whatever. I just want to get the h#@* out of there by this point. (We were in a room with about 10 other patients getting prepped for surgery.)

So then we are still standing there. Waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Until finally I ask, "can we go?" The nurse says, "oh, I'm just waiting for these papers to print out. The printer's not working right." So we wait. When she finally comes around with the papers, I notice that she's explaining the recovery procedure for tonsil removal. I didn't even correct her because I didn't want to wait another 20 minutes for the correct papers to print.

By this time, I was feeling so bad for Dylan who kept trying to grab his mouth and was SCREAMING, "mommy my teeth hurt." I was starting to get choked up. So we finally left and headed to the pharmacy.

Because Dylan was tantruming so badly, I didn't even attempt to put his clothes back on. So there we were in the pharmacy, diapered in all his glory, waiting for our tylenol with codeine. When the pharmacist finally brought it out to us, it was spilled all over. The entire bottle was sticky. So she told us that she was going to mix another bottle.

So we wait for 10 more minutes. Now keep in mind, that Dylan is screaming bloody murder the ENTIRE time. Finally I stand up and say, "Is it ready yet? This is getting a little ridiculous." She says, "Let me check. Oh, here it is."

OH MY GOSH! I wanted to punch her in the face! How long was she going to have sit there before she took the time to check? I would think that she would want to get a tantruming baby out of there as soon as she could. Apparently not.

When I got in the car, Justin called. He's been in Florida for work for the past two days. I started sobbing. I just felt so overwhelmed by all of it.

I am SO grateful to Sara who took Charlie to and from school today, and then came over and made him lunch while I sat on the couch with a crying Dylan.

So Kaiser, thanks for the surgery, but your recovery staff and the pharmacy can BITE ME!