(That’s Addy trying to play it cool while telling me what she’s looking forward to at this surgery.  Before I pulled out my phone, she had been talking a million miles an hour, almost bouncing off the bed with enthusiasm.)

Addy had another laser surgery in January. She had looked forward to it for MONTHS. We try to do them every three months now that she’s older, but occasionally we have to push it back an extra month for scheduling conflicts, like this round. So with 4 months between surgeries here, she had an extra month to get excited about going into Children’s hospital.

“Mom! When do we go to the hospital?”
“Another 6 weeks, sweetie.”
“But I thought we were going sooooooner!”
…
“Mom! We go see Doctor Zelickson THIS MONTH!”
…
“Only 3 weeks until we go to Children’s!”
…
“I get to go see him in 2 weeks!”
…
“MOM! Only 1 week left!”
…
“GUESS WHAT!! Only 3 days until I see Doctor Zelickson!”
…
We came this close to making a paper chain like we do for countdowns to vacations.

This kid loves going to Children’s hospital for her laser surgeries. Her love of all things medical is the result of both some intentional parenting during her early procedures and the awesome folks at Children’s. (I’ll post more details about the parenting side later, in another post.)

Addy underwent her first laser surgery at 5 weeks old, and she’s had over 30 so far. She knows the faces of Doctor Zelickson, the nurses, the anesthesiologists, and the Child Life Specialists, and they all know her. She knows the routine by heart and looks forward to it each time.

Here’s the routine: We get to the hospital early in the morning and check in, where she chats up the receptionist. We wait in the waiting room for a few minutes until they call her name, then we follow them back to the pre-op ward. We stop in the hallway to check her weight and get her some hospital jammies. We settle into the pre-op room, she changes clothes and gets comfy on the hospital bed, and then the nurse starts the Q&A session (“Any loose teeth? Recent colds?”) while checking Addy’s blood pressure, etc. As an hour or so passes, we see a parade of people: the pre-op nurse, the pre-op nursing assistant, the Child Life Specialist (Geri, of whom you’ll see more later here), the nurse anesthetist, the anesthesiologist, and, of course, Dr. Zelickson. Everyone verifies what we’re doing (“laser surgery”) and where (“to the right side of the face”). Somewhere in that hour, either the nurse or Geri hooks Addy up with toys, even remembering from visit to visit which toys are Addy’s favorite (princesses, of course). Then, when it’s time for the procedure, they wheel her back to the Operating Room, and I give her a kiss while they drug her and then leave once she’s asleep so they can do the zapping. They wheel her back to the room within 20 minutes. (It’s a fast procedure.)

I should pause here to explain that in the past, we’ve had some trouble coming out of anesthesia. Addy was 3 or 4 when she experienced ‘emergent delerium’, which means that her body woke up before her brain. Anesthesia is steadily breathed out of the system, and if the body wakes up before it’s all out, the brain is still fogged, drugged, and weird. With Addy, this manifested first as weepiness, then quickly turned to an angry, inconsolable tantrum that lasted an hour. It was like being on the set of “The Exorcist.” It. Was. Miserable.

After that, I’ve always asked the anesthesia team to please keep her asleep as long as possible, to let her sleep off the drugs. At September’s surgery, they gave her Versed, which is a hilariously loopy drug that helped knock her out until her brain was de-fogged. Worked like a dream, and I got some very cute videos of a trippy Addy.

This time, we did the same thing. The nurse gave her Versed at 7:25a.m., and because Versed wipes out memory, he reminded me: “Her memory stopped at seven-fifteen.” Ok, cool, whatever.

Wrong.

When Versed wiped Addy’s memory, she lost the memory of seeing Dr. Zelickson, of being wheeled down to the O.R., and really, of most of the routine she had so intently looked forward to.

When she came out of anesthesia, she was confused and weepy and demanded that we do it all again! She cried because she didn’t believe us when we told her that we’d already done everything, and it was over now. “No, we haven’t! I haven’t seen Doctor Zelickson! You haven’t wheeled me down the hall yet! You need to wheel me down the hall!”

This is where Geri (the Child Life Specialist) comes in. As soon as the staff saw that Addy was distressed, Geri stepped up. Planted next to Addy’s bed, she calmly and clearly spoke to the confused little girl, firmly reiterating that yes, we’ve already done all of that, and then she reminded Addy of the yucky-tasting drug she took earlier, explained to her that it wipes out memory, asked Mommy to pull out the phone with which we’d taken a few pictures ahead of time (to show Addy evidence of the routine that did in fact take place), and explained to Addy in clear step-by-step terms that her big-girl brain doesn’t like being confused about sequence and routine, and that it’s okay to be a little stressed about it. She didn’t mince words, she held her ground when Addy insisted that we do it all again, she was kind, she was patient, she was empathetic, she was firm, she was clear, she was basically everything you’d want someone to be when they’re giving your kid a pep talk like this.

She helped catch Dr. Zelickson between procedures, so he could come back into Addy’s room and we could check that off Addy’s mental checklist (again). She even arranged for the two of us to wheel Addy’s bed down to an induction room (which looked like an O.R. but wasn’t in use) to fill in some of the routine ‘gaps’ in Addy’s brain. Check.

Can you see why I love going to a Children’s Hospital?  These people know their clientele.

When we were all done and Addy was ready to go, I took her down to the hospital cafeteria for a special breakfast, just the two of us. (A rare treat when you’re the eldest of 3 kids.) Her brain was de-fogged and she enjoyed herself.

All in all, I felt awful about wiping Addy’s memory of the experience that she had so wonderfully anticipated. She’s already counting down to the next one, and we’ve all agreed (me, Keith, Children’s staff, and especially Addy) that we’ll skip the Versed next time. Apparently, the risk of emergent delirium peaks around ages 3-4, so it’s less of a risk now anyway.

Each year of treating Addy’s port wine stain brings something different; we’ll see what Age 7 has in store for us.  (So far, it appears we’ll be dealing with a strange tear-drainage problem around the eye, but more on that later.)  Whatever it brings, I know that Addy’s in good hands at Children’s, and that we’ll figure it out together.

Having breakfast after Addy’s latest laser treatment.