…OR so it would seem if you have been checking my blog and noticed I haven’t had a new entry in awhile! Juggling things isn’t easy, but children take priority over all things. When your baby is sick or uncomfortable, life stops.
I am happy to report that Nishad is back to being himself! We went in for surgery and I was just amazed at how well-behaved and ‘adjusted’ he was at the hospital. He spoke to the nurses and doctors in a way that was mature beyond his years. Oh course, it helped that there were toys there!
When it came time to ‘put him down’ I went in with him. It was incredibly hard for me to do, but it had to be done and I didn’t want to ‘show’ him that I was scared. So, as we entered the dimly-lit room, I talked to him about the fire man mask. He colored the mask with chap stick that smelled like watermelon and then the doctor placed it over his nose and mouth. I sang to him, “Twinkle, twinkle…” as the star lights changed colors on the ceiling of the room. He drifted off, and the anesthesiologist said, “It doesn’t get simpler than that. Thank you for your help.” They moved the mask off one side of his cheek so I cold give him a kiss and I walked out. It wasn’t until I walked out of the room that I allowed myself to cry.
We waited with our eyes on the screen in the family waiting room- icons that indicated to us when he was entering surgery, in surgery, leaving the OR and in recovery. His doctor came out to speak to us and told us that she feels the procedure went well. She can’t give any guarantee that it will never happen again, but she did get a lot of ‘stuff’ out of his eye. He isn’t to play in the sand for awhile, or balls. She doesn’t want his eye to get infected while healing, or for it to get hurt.
The lag time to see him in recovery took longer than expected. I was getting very nervous. When we finally were brought back to see him, there were nurses surrounding him, he was laying on his side, quiet and he looked so lonely. I just about broke down as I went over to him and he looked up and saw me- he immediately started to cry. They told us that he was in pain, so they had to give him some morphine. I couldn’t help but think of our baby waking up and us not being there, because they had to first stabilize him. I understand…he needed to be stabilized, however, he’s only 2- we should have been there regardless. Ashish picked him up and rocked him. I had a flashback of a time when Nishad was only about 6 or 7 months old in Ashish’s arms. I know Nishad loves me, but he and his Daddy have this tight bond at the young age of 2, that most people don’t develop with their parents over a life time. When I started feeding baby Arun snacks, that is when Nishad perked up and said he would like some. We were warned by a friend not to let the nurses give him apple juice as it will make him sick, so we let him sip on water, and gave him snacks. He started to come around better- and within an hour, we were on the road, returning home.
Nishad was starving by the time we were home. He ate two pieces of pizza, two packages of apple sauce, rice cake, apple… Poor guy! He hadn’t eaten since around 7pm the previous day. We kept him home the following day from school as a pre-caution. That gave him the weekend to re-cover. He was bouncing around like a bunder (monkey, in Hindi) and back to his typical charming ways in no time!