Prato Family: Like Mother, Like Son

Medical play at home with mommy, getting ready for surgery!

Russell had his eartubes placed today and did really well. The anesthesiologist that I had asked to do Russell's surgery was assigned to the heart room and wouldn't be able to leave for Russell's case. I find out that the anesthesiologist assigned to us, is the only one in the hospital that does not allow parents to go back into the OR, but I did get to go back. I stayed with Russell until he was alseep and then I joined Luis in the waiting room. We ran to the cafeteria and before we could get back upstairs, the procedure was done. Dr. Hales met us in the hallway as we were getting off the elevators and the first thing that he says to us is that Russell was "long overdue" for eartubes. He said the fluid in his ears was not even a fluid consistancy. He said it was so thick, it was like "pulling spaghetti" out of his ear. He said that since it was so thick, he spent a little more time suctioning everything out. Before surgery, Dr. Hales said that daycare tomorrow was okay, but after, he said that he needed to stay out a day. He'll have more drainage and bleeding because his ears were more inflamed than usual. But again, you would never even know that the child had surgery today. He's been laughing and playing all afternoon.

So onto the "like mother, like son" part. Apparently, Russell quit breathing while he was under. It's a complications that no one can predict for anyone. He had a laryngospasm (sp?). It's where your airway begins to spasm and your vocal cords completely close off your airway. They were ready for this to happen (they're always on standby for this since no one can predict who will have this) and were able to stop the spasm with medication. Dr. Hales said that his O2 levels never dropped below 80%. Dr. Hales was one of my doctors 3 years ago when I had my Cricoid Tracheal Resection and he said that I did the same thing during the 2 times when "we almost lost you". He also said, "you may not even know that this happened to you" which is correct. No one ever told me that this happened. So Dr. Hales is telling up this before we go into the recovery room to see Russell. In the conversation, he says that the anesthesiologist will talk with us more about what happened. While in the recovery room, the anesthesiologist comes over and begins telling us how well he did, no complications ... blah, blah, blah ... and then says, "he did decide to hold his breath at one point and I had to give him some medicine to relax". I looked at Luis after she walked away and said, "well that's a nice way to sugarcoat it!". The director of Outpatient Surgery found us in stepdown and wanted to know from me how everything went. I told her that I was concerned about being told what happened from Dr. Hales and then having the anesthesiologist just sugarcoat it. I mean, isn't that something that parents should be told!!! It really concerns me that parents aren't told about this so I plan to talk with administration or someone when I get back to work next week. It's ridiculous that I wasn't told before today that this happened to me. Maybe had I known this happened to me, I could have told the staff to watch for the same thing with Russell!!!!

But we're doing really well. He sat this afternoon and played with is toys for a good 45 minutes straight, in the same spot, and I think it's because he could actually hear what sounds they were making. I did have to wrestle him to get the eardrops in. I think that's going to be the hardest part of this whole thing!