Tuesday, December 13, 2011

On the First Day of Christmas...

...my true love gave to me one brand spankin' new ear tube and a sedated hearing exam!

Today was the day for Pacey's ear surgery. Being the natural planner I am, I packed a bag for him last night, left instructions for Chris to manage Brighton's morning and set my alarm for 5:00 to arrive at the hospital by 6:00. Imagine my shock and horror, therefore, when my alarm went off and it was 6:30 am. I had, of course, set my second alarm for 5:00 PM.

I confess I sort of fell apart...I couldn't even figure out what to do, who to call or anything. Chris took charge, told me to go get ready and he pulled a sleeping Pacey out of bed and buckled him into the car in his jammies. I brushed my teeth and we got on the road while Chris called the hospital to let them know we were coming.

Now, anyone who knows me at all can guess at the level of utter mortification I was feeling about this situation. I am NOT LATE. I routinely take the first appointment at various offices because I am confident about being on time and I know how much doctors' (and their nurses') days can be put off by one late patient. We'd managed to get this appointment squeezed in by the end of the year to take advantage of having paid our health insurance annual maximum, and by some miracle Pacey had stayed healthy in the midst of flu season. I was distraught at the thought we'd have to reschedule. Anyway, everyone was extremely kind and they got us right back to pre-op and things went as planned. I have to say again that Children's Hospital in Minneapolis is truly superb. The staff were amazing and have such a great way with the kids and parents alike. The facilities are nice and well thought-out and they really do their best to minimize everyone's stress levels.

For the first time I actually stayed with Pacey while he went to "sleep." While it was incredibly unnerving to see him unconscious, it was so lovely to see how gentle they were with him...several of the staff, including the anesthesiologist sang "Wheels on the Bus" while he dropped off. Everything went very smoothly and we were back home by 11:00. We have a quiet afternoon of movie watching and napping on the schedule, and then tomorrow it's back to regularly scheduled December excitement.

In other news, the weather has been so warm that all our snow has actually melted and we may yet have a non-white Christmas. Quite the change from last year, and not a terrible one in my book. I will be hoping for some colder weather though as I need the lakes to be frozen enough to send Chris out ice fishing between Christmas and New Years or he might actually drive me insane :)

And finally, just a brief showcase of Pacey's latest journal entry for school. I made a note that I helped him draw the circles, but he added everything else and made, in my humble opinion, a rather fantastic snowman.


1 comment:

Heather said...

So glad surgery went smoothly- hope Pacey is feeling well today!

Last year at this time, over 55 inches of snow had already fallen in Dec. This year we've had 5 inches total. Praying this doesn't bite us in the butt in Jan/Feb/March!!