Turn It Up To 11

Yesterday was Caedmon’s 11th laser treatment.

It’s weird to think my child has had laser surgery eleven times. Which means we’ve driven to Children’s at an ungodly hour of the morning, stopped at the same Chick-fil-A and Starbucks, sat in the same chairs, seen the same nurses, answered the same questions, signed the same forms, and waited to hear the same news: “He’s out of surgery and doing fine.” We’ve followed the same blue footprints to recovery and watched the same nurses fuss over how sweet our boy is and giggle over him stuffing his face with the same snacks. We’ve made the same trip home and had the same sense of relief when we pulled into the driveway. Eleven times.

That is not to say our experiences have all been the same, though. There was the time someone else canceled our appointment for us. And the time we had the crappiest surgery time ever. And the time when I met a guy whose daughter was having an unscheduled brain surgery. And the time I took Caedmon for his first 4:30am gas station potty break and we got a resident in trouble.

But today was the first time we went as a family of four. And the first time Caedmon cried, not because of the surgery, but because he missed his sister and wanted her there with him. It broke my heart. And I kicked myself because I had failed to prepare him to leave Daddy and Honor in the waiting room while we went back to pre-op.

And this was the first time we didn’t go directly to our pre-op room. There were lots of surgeries yesterday apparently, so after weight & measurement, we were sent to the playroom until a room opened up. That would’ve been completely fine except that there was someone already in there…with a 1 year-old who was screaming her head off. It didn’t help Caedmon’s emotional state, to say the least. Or mine.

Thankfully, we didn’t have to stay there very long. We made it to our room and put the hospital pajamas on. Our first treatment, those yellow scrub pajamas were so big on Caedmon, we had to roll them up several times. This is what they looked like yesterday.

My boy has gotten big, y’all.

When the nurses in the hallway saw that Caedmon was upset about having to leave his sister behind, they brought him something special to play with.

Have I mentioned how much I love the staff at Children’s? Because I do.

Meanwhile, Honor was hanging out in the waiting room with Daddy.

Ms. D was on vacation yesterday and we again had to convince the resident (not Mr. BYU this time) to mark Caedmon’s face before going back to surgery. I totally pulled out the “Diane says” card, too. I wasn’t afraid. That resident wasn’t leaving that room without marking Caedmon’s face. And he finally gave in and marked Caedmon’s face.

After the resident left, Caedmon started crying. I asked him what was wrong and he said he wanted to see Ms. Diane. I told him we’d take a picture and email it to her and she’d get it when she gets back from vacation. It’s so sweet that he missed her.

The OR nurse that came to get Caedmon knew the origins of his name, which was cool. He went to surgery without a peep. Such a big boy.

When I went back to recovery to get Caedmon, his nurse had gotten him an orange popsicle. He was thoroughly enjoying it, even though he was still pretty droopy eyed.

On the way home, we made our regular stop at Chick-fil-A. Honor slept the whole way, and Caedmon split some screen time between Mike Wazowski and Buzz Lightyear. We made it home in time for the kids to nap and for us to attempt naps.

Laser Beam Doc wants to see him again in three months. Which is not exactly what we expected this time. We were hoping to move to a maintenance schedule after this treatment. But she turned the laser “up to 11” and wants to see if more progress can be made in a few areas before moving to a maintenance schedule. But knowing that we will be moving, she told us we can be flexible – that it won’t be detrimental to his progress if it takes us longer than 3 months to find someone close to our new home, or if we need to go back at Christmas when we come home to visit. Either way, we’ll work it out. I hate to have to find someone else at this point, but I’m very thankful we’ve had access to a fabulous, world-renowned doctor to care for our boy.