Thursday, April 4, 2013

Surgery!

Waiting room baby.
You should see Alex's penis.  I would take a picture of it for posterity, but it would probably end up on Facebook, and then DCFS would be knocking on my door wondering exactly what kind of operation I'm running over here.  He finally had his surgeries:  anal fistula excision and circumcision revision. With the anal fistula, you can hardly tell anything was done.  With the circumcision revision- well, I guess I wasn't prepared for all of the stitches around the tip of his ding dong.  It looks like little Alex was in some terrible crotch related accident.  Like his original penis got stuck in a blender while we were pantslessly making smoothies, and the doctor had to sew on a new one.  This is one of those times I'm grateful that the kid's not in day care.  I have a feeling all of the day care ladies would be gathered around him during diaper change time murmuring to themselves, "Well, this can't possibly be right."

The day went well.  The surgery wasn't until close to eleven in the morning, which is a ridiculous time, but starving Alex for the morning proved to not be as horrible as I had feared.  Don't get me wrong- he certainly wasn't happy about being denied his usual bottles and meals, but he could have acted a lot worse.  We left the house early to provide plenty of time for check in and prep, Chris and I chowing down on McDonalds in the front seat while Alex whimpered pitifully in the back.  I half expected him to utter his first words that morning- to yell out, "Hey, is that the crinkling of a fast food bag up there?  You know I'm starving, right?  What gives, man???"  I was reminded of when I took Chris to the emergency room eight years ago for his bad gallbladder.  Afterwards, he was unable to eat, and yet I was very hungry.  "I'm so sorry," I told my fiancee, pulling into the McDonalds drive thru and ordering a feast.  "This is really crappy of me.  Yeah, I'll take a number one with an extra hash brown!  No, that's it- my passenger just got released from the hospital and can't eat!"

I had one moment while we were waiting for the nurse to take Alex into surgery where I thought I might cry, but I held steady.  Then Chris and I went to the waiting room where we watched surgeon after surgeon come out and tell the families of other patients how well things had gone.  After an hour or so, a lady came out and called for Alexander's parents.  "That's us," I replied, jumping up.  She said, "The doctor wants to see you in the consultation room."  She ushered us into a private room equipped with Kleenex boxes, and suddenly my stomach dropped.  Why were we in the bad news room?  What had happened?  Every worst case scenario ran through my skull, including the worst of the worst, and it was a long five minutes until the surgeon strolled in and said, "Alexander did great.  Now let's talk about the ointment situation.  You got ointment at home?  You're going to need ointment."

I was so happy to finally hold my baby again, who seemed mildly stoned and very hungry.  In the evening, we gave him his prescription tylenol with codeine, which helped him promptly fall asleep and remain in the exact same position all night- a little rock of exhaustion tucked in the corner of his crib.  Today, he seemed basically back to his old self- demanding large meals, smiling for no reason, pulling himself up on furniture, crawling around the house on various scouting missions, and getting up in Andy's face whenever the opportunity presented himself.  Alex is such a good boy.  He's a champ, and he deserves a new toy.  But no straddle toys, because that would just be cruel.

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