Pediatric Strabismus Surgery...the Aftermath Edition

It's amazing how quickly the pieces fall into place just a few days before the surgery. One day before EV went to her Pediatrician (who I love and adore and have a fear everyday of his retirement) to get cleared for the surgery (it may not seem like a lot of time but this was coordinated with Dr. Wirth and Dr. Kanterman). She hadn't seen him since the start of the pandemic so it was good for her to get checked out, plus with me being off, we were able to bring Danny too and get a twofer. She was cleared and also given a rx for bloodwork (non-related to the surgery). She loves visiting with Dr. Wirth, so this was a nice treat...for both of them lol.

Also, the day before the surgery you will get the time that the surgery will take place. I was glad when it was scheduled for 6am so she'd have an entire day to recuperate especially since she couldn't eat or drink after midnight. Cue all the Gremlins references...

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We had planned to make the day before the surgery (and lets be honest when you are done reading this, it was pretty much the entire week) as a day where EV got to direct what we did. In doing so, it involved a lot of Mickey Clubhouse theme music to ad nauseum. If I didn't know my shapes before, I sure as heck know them now.

Anytime that the four of us can just veg in front of the tv and the kids just want to snuggle with us, I will take. She is not normally a snuggle on the couch kinda kid, so this was more my dream day than anything ;).

In case your wondering....that is an Elena of Avalor (sceptor? staff?) and it sings...a lot!

Dr. Kanterman's Office Manager called later in the day to run down what would take place during the surgery and what we would need to pack for EV. Of course in typical fashion I worried about everything, so I packed extra, but the basics were;

• Zip-Up light sweatshirt

• Heavier sweatshirt

• Leggings and T-shirt (she wore this to Outpatient)

• Extra binkies (traditionally only offered for nap and emergencies like this)

• Extra diapers and wipes

She was unable to eat or drink anything so snacks and drinks were not needed.

I woke up with both her and Hubs at 530am where he promptly asked where the diaper bags were kept to put EV's stuff in...cue face palm emoji. Since we had compiled all of her stuff the night before, it made the getting ready part easier, but also harder. How do you not know where stuff is? YOU LIVE HERE!! But honestly, the man hands down deserves Father Of The Year, so instead of yelling the above, I just gave directions to the place where the bags are and that I have shown him a million times over. Although Commodore has his own room (right now it serves as an office) and EV is with us in our room (no judging thanks), for the moment (also known as the last 1.5 years) he is sleeping in the crib in her room. With this being the way things are for now and him being the lightest sleeper ever, we knew we would be unable to go into his room to get anything if we needed it, so having everything ready to go the night before was necessary.

Cue the shoe debacle of 2021 that had me inconsolable (much to the amusement of my guy friends).

If you need to see a picture of the shoes that pretty much ended EV's world and put me into hysterics....here they are...

Now the morning of resulted in pretty much me doing everything in my power to stay focused on the task at hand; get her ready and out the door and try not to break down until after they left the house. EV, unlike the Commodore is a REALLY deep sleeper (nothing wakes this girl up...NOTHING) and she REALLY likes her sleep so waking her up in the morning and not giving her time to acclimate never bodes well for the situation (unless we are transitioning her jammies and all directly to the car).

She was inconsolable. She had no idea why she was up and it was dark out, she had no idea why she would be going anywhere without me and "brother" and she just begged and begged for us to come and this is pretty much when my heart broke into pieces. I was able to get her to some place of being okay regarding going out without us only to get her dressed and have her collapse in new hysterics over the above mentioned shoes of "awfulness". The shoes were too "sparkly" (apparently the incredible hatred of sparkly has now passed on to shoes) and thus began the sobbing and begging for me to change her shoes (which of course were in her room that I could not go in). All she kept saying was how "horrible" and "awful" they were. This moment right here is when mama's sanity went clear out the door. Cue the dry heave sobbing (me not her this time). Here was my little girl begging me to go with her and hating these shoes and all I kept thinking was if god forbid something happened to her all she would remember was me not being there and sending her in shoes she hated. I. Was. A. Mess. and poor Hubs can't even stay and console me because they were already working against the clock and had to be at outpatient by a specific time for check-in. Reading this back, I can see where this may sound a little dramatic, but at the time, every reaction made perfect sense.

and you know what happened when they walked out the door and the door closed behind them? Commodore woke up...

Don't let these smiles fool you. Now Commodore has woken up...its 530am...he never wakes up when its dark out so he is out of sorts, so I go to get him as he is not going back to sleep (we have a video monitor in the room) and I am thinking it will console me having him with me. Big. Mistake. Upon toddling over to our room and realizing that both EV and Daddio are not in the house...full on exorcist mode takes over. I have never seen anything like it and it took what felt like FOREVER and all the Mickey goldfish I could provide just to have him down to a whimper. My best friends words later in the day when she was checking in: "I am always up at that time....you should have called me"...I have never wanted to hang up on a person so bad in my life...

I feel like I must have text Hubs four times before I received a response (so you can imagine how well that went over) Who knew it was possible to use so many exclamation points and capital letters to try to get ones point across? I did get the most adorable story that in pure EV fashion before even being taken back that she had won everyone over and had them eating out of the palm of her hand...the conversation between Bonnie (the nurse and EV)

Bonnie: begins to remove EV's face mask

EV: What are you doinnnnnnng?!

Dr. Kanterman: Begins to explain what he is doing and the procedure

EV: Yeahhhhh....I don't think this is a good idea...I think we need another plan.

Dr. Kanterman: (to Hubs when the procedure was over): You have quite the firecracker there, the nurses just wanted to keep her talking....

Dr. Kanterman stated that the surgery went excellent there were no complications and the next pictures from Hubs were the ones below. You know how some people use the statement I could finally take a breath that I didn't know I was holding...I understood that statement for the very first time that moment. They basically let the kiddos sleep until they wake up themselves. For the normal napping child this would be great, for EV I knew it could take hours before I saw her and this is where my patience really got tested.

Now before the Pacifier Police have anything to say, she barely uses this. It is for emergency comfort uses ONLY and this was definitely one of those times and I do not regret it one bit.

Hubs is primarily the one that takes EV to the appointments and I stay with the Commodore, so I was shocked when he told me that when she woke up, she just went crazy asking for me and begging to go home so that she could be with me. Apparently they try not to release kids until they have at least gone to the bathroom once, but it must have been one doozy of a freak-out session as they released her anyway and let us know that if she doesn't go to the bathroom by a certain time to reach out to them immediately. Luckily this was not an issue as she went pretty much the second she was in the door of the house. For someone that loves juice (majority water and a splash of juice) I was shocked how little she wanted to drink anything (she only seemed to ask for milk) and fluid was the one thing that Dr. Kanterman told us was the most important to get into her the first day.

After the surgery it was instructed that she rested, was as leisurely as possible and stayed away from touching her eyes. We did this in shifts as I did not want her straining her eyes or rubbing them trying to interact with the Commodore. Hubs was AH-Mazing!! He let me just stay in the bedroom with EV while we binged watched anything she wanted to her hearts content (we had moved on to Vampirina at this point). Her appetite was normal so we brought in a lap tray and all the snacks she could eat and just let her rest which she definitely did a lot of. In typical EV fashion she is always experiencing FOMO so it still took a bit to get her relaxed enough to just pass out and nap even though as you can tell by the pictures, she was full on exhausted.

You know what you do not see in these pictures, a bandaid on her arm....want to know why?! Because when she got home from the surgery and she got all settled and finally noticed said bandaid, she lost her every loving mind. Like full on wailing, you would have thought that the bandaid was sucking her very soul out of her body. She would not calm down or even consider relaxing until said bandaid was removed, which we did because both myself and EV had experienced enough trauma for the day. I think she would have ridden the Skyliner again before dealing with that bandaid all day.

Fun fact: When you use Spray On Laundry Resolve, 2 Laundry Pods, half a cup of Bleach and a cup of White Vinegar with a Tablespoon of Baking Soda....blood comes out of white sheets. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

But boy oh boy, once the nap was over...it was like surgery? What surgery?! I had a surgery?! Thank goodness for "backyard" neighbors who do an amazing job of recreating Wilson from Home Improvement and who always have "bomb pops" on the ready for the kids at the most perfect of times...

Literally...he just pops over the fence with treats. If I do not say it enough, we have hit the neighborhood jackpot!

For anyone that has either had Strabismus Surgery or is scheduled to have it, be aware that your eyes will be red for at least 6-8 weeks. We were prepared for this and honestly I am glad that they had made it sound worse than it was (of course this might be case by case for all that I know) because honestly, it wasn't that bad or at least the vision of what I thought it was going to look like was worse in my mind. One of the most difficult things was knowing that we couldn't full on bathe her for five days. Our girl loves herself some water and a bath, so we had to be sure that while she napped, we gave Commodore a bath and then sponge bathed her in the bathroom (avoiding her eyes). Although she still requested a bath, it wasn't as hard to go the other route since she wasn't seeing her brother get a bath.

She is definitely bloodshot in the corners of both her eyes and there is some red pooling depending on how she is looking at you, but it is nothing like what I had expected...you know what is worse and what no one prepares you for?! Trying to come close to your kids eye that just had surgery with prescription eyedrops. What. A. Fiasco.

Dr. Kanterman called in eyedrops. I suggest calling in reinforcements for this. Hubs puts them in her eyes, while I held her hands over her head and asked her questions or attempted to tell her a story (apparently one does not care if Ahoska Tano loves getting eyedrops). It is still a lot of work, but we were able to administer drops this way although the first several went all over the place. We were also told to administer Tylenol ever 4-6 hours or as needed, which we ended up not having to give her as she seemed her regular old self after two naps and never ran a fever. Regardless, she takes Tylenol and meds by the syringe really well so this wouldn't have been an issue anyway.

Keeping EV confined to a room all day without a brother crawling all over her and demanding all of her attention may have seemed like a dream for the first day of being home, but it didn't take long after that for the boredom to set it in and she was in some need of interaction with other people other than me (no matter how exciting I think I am and can entertain the mind of a child for hours on end). As one of her presents, we had gotten her an Incredibles t-shirt (she has been loving the "superhero family" and apparently one can watch it more then half a dozen times in one day without getting bored of it....Guinness World Record for Toddlers anyone?). EV also has more black capri leggings than I can count so it looked super cute with the t-shirt and it was something she could sleep in (comfort was key). Commodore's jammies were actually EV's that he inherited. So the day after her surgery we let her adapt and by adapting we mean allowed her to watch the superhero family more times than I could count or would ever want you all to count...

Thankfully, the College that I work for was on Spring Break as this was the laziest week of my life!

Just a Commodore pretending he is not doing anything to annoy the ever loving crap out of his sister.

Oh look, you are still here!

I know a lot of parents say it, but I hit the amazing kid jackpot. She is tough and resilient and spends more time worrying about others concerns then having concerns herself (unless there is a large ugly bandaid on her arm). Even after she emerged from her groggy state, she just kind of stared at me holding her hand for a bit and then looked up at me without skipping a beat said "don't worry mama...it is just my eyes...I am getting better." Looking back and a week in you wouldn't think that she hadn't gone through anything. I am in awe of her every single day.

I will just leave you with pictures from Friday (March 5th) when Raya and the Last Dragon got released. I would say it was a hit to say in the least...or you would at least think it with the 8 times she made us watch it over the weekend.

Have you all seen it?! Have you been made to see it more than you can count?! Are you missing the "music"? We absolutely loved it and I thought the musical score was so amazing that I didn't even miss the songs and would you even want to follow-up after Lin-Manuel anyway? ;)

Feel free to ask any questions about the surgery too....