“You’re Where?!”

Pediatric Surgery, known to we hospital insiders as “Peed Surge,” a place I’ve visited far too many times over the past three years … is somehow where we ended up yesterday.

No, there is not another freak accident to report, just a freaky sort of day, where everything seemed upside down and backwards and I couldn’t quite figure out why we were where we were.

On Wednesday afternoon, the secretary from the orthopaedic surgeon’s office called to schedule Thursday’s appointment to finally remove those stitches. She said, “1:30” and I quickly said, “Oh perfect,” relieved that the boys could stay at Dinosaur Dig camp until noon. Then she said we needed to arrive at 11:30 and that Austin couldn’t eat in the morning.

Oh bother, I thought, why on earth do they schedule kids in the afternoon if they’re not allowed to eat anything? And why on earth do we have to be there so darn early if this is supposed to be a ten-minute procedure? But I figured I knew my way around this stuff and didn’t ask any questions (insert foreshadowing music here). I got Austin up early and gave him a few bites of applesauce (more foreshadowing music), along with his morning meds, and dropped them off at camp for a quick two hours.

I picked them up at early at the Children’s Museum, which happens to be located a mere quarter mile from Rainbow (more music), then brought Braedan to a friend’s house and continued on my way with Austin to the hand surgeon’s Chagrin office, which was where we’d seen him for each of the past two weeks. Twenty-five minutes later we arrive and the woman checking people in was very confused when I said why we were there. She made a quick phone call and then told me, “He’s listed for surgery at 1:30 downtown.” Surgery? What do you mean, surgery? “That’s what it says in our system. Are you familiar with Rainbow Babies’ & Children’s Hospital on the main campus?” Huh. “Oh yes,” I say and leave in a huff, retracing our steps all the way back, past our house, down the hill, into the all-too-familiar parking garage.

By this time, Austin, exhausted from begging for food, had fallen asleep, so I carry my 37-pound boy in my arms to the pediatric sedation unit. The woman there got the same confused look on her face and, not seeing his name on the list, called over to Peed Surge. Yup, they were waiting for us.

Good thing I know my way around that hospital with my eyes closed. Down one elevator, through the halls, up another elevator, follow the blue butterfly stickers on the wall and finally, we found ourselves back in Pediatric Surgery, for the eleventh time in Austin’s short life.

They checked us in after a short wait and we had to go through the whole rigmarole (yes, that’s really how you spell that word — I just checked): medical history, medications, reactions to blood or anesthesia, etc etc. The orthopaedic surgeon explained apologetically that he isn’t allowed to administer sedation himself, each piece of the health care puzzle now so highly specialized that you have to go to ten different departments to get anything done. He was surprised his secrtary hadn’t explained it better, but I think maybe it was my own fault for assuming I was already an expert. It was still expected to be a minor procedure, propophol through the gas mask and quick removal of sutures. I felt sort of silly that we were even there, getting ready in pre-op, just to pull out some stitches! A far cry from the myraid other reasons we’ve been in that room.

And of course, being in that space, we bumped into Austin’s nurse practitioner (“What happened to Austin now?!”), the surgeon who did December’s kidney sparing surgery (“What are you doing here?”), the surgeon who did his first two surgeries three years ago, and eventually even his oncologist who was checking on another patient coming out of surgery (“Krissy…? Are you guys okay?”).

And then the anesthesiologist showed up and was most concenred about those few bites of applesauce he’d had. I tried to excuse myself by explaining that I thought he was going not to surgery but to sedation, where you’re allowed to eat four hours prior, but she was not pleased. She wandered off to see if we could reschedule for 3, which I was dreading as Austin had been crying for food for the past hour and a half already. Eventually she conceded we could move ahead and do it, only after listing the rare but horrible things that could happen like applesauce coming up and getting stuck in his lungs, giving him pneumonia that would result in hospitalization. She thought the risk was negligible and I thought it sounded better than dealing with an increasingly starving pre-schooler for two more hours, so I signed the consent and finally, finally, it was time.

I donned my space suit and walked into the operating room with him, leaving only after he was knocked out, then wandered the halls until I had enough phone service to call Mark (“You’re where??”). Fifteen minutes later I was back in post-op, standing by his hospital crib, waiting for him to come to. Then another thirty minutes of recovery, complete with a popsicle and juice, before we were finally on our way.

No damage at all to the hand. The doctor even said he doesn’t need to see us for follow-up unless we have a concern (“You guys spend enough time in hospitals.” Do we ever!). Austin’s now free to swim and dig and grip and do all those other things that kids with two working hands do. And Mark has already taught him to bat as a lefty, so we’re all good. All good.