Our brave little pirate

Today was John's eye surgery to drain a very stubborn sty on his right eye. He was scheduled for 11:30 a.m., so he had to stop eating at midnight. Last night we kept him up WAY past his bedtime and shoved as much food into him as he could stand. Then he got Gatorade instead of milk this morning, since he could only have clear liquids until 8:30 this morning. Parents of the year, right here. ;-)

Anyway, the surgery. We have quite the little trooper. He was so excited to be at the surgery center and got all kinds of special attention from the nurses, who were instantly charmed when he specifically asked to be put in the "C" pre-op room. He really liked his "pretty special hospital shirt" and when it was time for him to go back, he took the nurse's hand, said "I'm ready for my strawberry (flavored anesthesia) now" and walked with her through the doors without a hint of hesitation.




Of course, there was a teeny, tiny hitch before he left. When the doctor checked his right eye before scrubbing in, she also looked at his left eye. Where there was also a sty. Yep, he had two, and the doctor went ahead and fixed that one, too.

When they carried him into the recovery room where we were waiting, he looked at me and said in this very groggy voice, "Mom. I don't like this on my eye." He got to eat a popsicle and have some juice, and before long we were headed home. We convinced him that cool pirates wear eye patches, and some very awesome pirate ducks helped reinforce that. (Thanks, Victor. :-))

 

You'd think that a very short night's sleep, surgery, and Tylenol with Codeine would result in a good nap. John didn't agree. He watched movies and ate toast and was generally pleasant until about 7:00, when he finally crashed in a heap of tears and exhaustion.

He'll be on Tylenol tonight and tomorrow, steroid ointment for 10 days, and then another medicine for 3 months to keep this from becoming a habit. Because as great as the doctors and nurses were and as smoothly as everything went, I really hope to never see a sty again.