Lucas's First Surgery

Like any "laid-back" (borderline neglectful) mom, I've always been happy to let Lucas run around our backyard in his bare feet. Shoes and socks just seem so oppressive in the summer time, and we didn't have sandals that would fit his chubby Fred Flintstone feet.

About a month ago, we noticed that he'd gotten a splinter in the bottom sole of his left foot. Brandon tried to get it out with tweezers, but without success. Lucas kicks and screams like he's demon-possessed if you mess with his feet, so we decided to leave it alone for a few days to see if it would work its way out. Instead, it just got puffy and red, with angry lines crawling up his ankle, so off to his doctor we went.

The first trip to the doctor, we saw someone else in the practice instead of our regular pediatrician. She had me and a nurse hold Lucas down so she could dig in his foot with tweezers and a needle while he screamed so loudly and frantically that I thought he might actually pass out. I was so frazzled afterward that I didn't hear her say that she'd only been able to get part of the splinter out due to Lucas's enthusiastic complaints.

The second trip to the doctor, our regular pediatrician, resulted in a referral to the orthopedic office after hearing my account of the first doctor's attempt and reading her notes in his file. At the third appointment, with an orthopedic surgeon, they did an ultrasound on his foot to visualize the "foreign body" (his objections regarding that procedure were also quite emphatic) and decided that the best result for everyone would be to put Lucas under some mild general anesthesia and get the splinter out that way.

So today we left for the hospital at 5am for our 5:30am check-in time for a 7:30 surgery. Lucas couldn't have any food after midnight, and no liquids at all after 4:30am. Since he magically slept through the night on Monday, this meant that he hadn't had anything to eat or drink since 8pm. I was very anxious about how he'd be without breakfast, so I forbade Brandon from drinking coffee or eating anything in front of him before the procedure.

Lucas did surprisingly well in the two hours between the check-in and the surgery while we met with the pre-op nurse and spoke with the surgical fellow, anesthesiologist, surgical nurse, and surgeon. He looked so cute and little in his "extra small" hospital gown and was the youngest patient there by quite a bit. I felt very lucky that our procedure was so minor after overhearing one doctor inform the parent that his child's surgery would be "at least 8 hours." The part I was most dreading, when the nurse carried him away awake for the procedure, turned out just fine; at least, he didn't cry until I was out of earshot so I can pretend it didn't happen at all.

The procedure took all of 10 minutes; he woke up from the anesthesia about 30 minutes after that. We met him in the recovery room. I wish I had a photo of him sitting up in his tiny gurney, guzzling down his first sippy of juice ever like he had just been rescued from a desert island. I swear he barely even noticed we were there in his haste to drink down the sweet apple nectar as quickly as possible. In all, baby's first "surgery" went as well as I could have hoped.

Our day back at home has been a little more difficult; he couldn't stand up on his own for several hours and wouldn't let me put him down. I feel like I've been carrying his 28 -pound butt around for the last 10 hours straight! After some Tylenol and a few of his favorite snacks he seems in a much better mood and has figured out how to get around on one foot and the tippy toes of the injured foot.

The bandage stays on for a week and his three stitches should dissolve about 2-3 weeks after that. Now, to figure out how to keep Hurricane Lucas contained for the next week since we can't really run around outside too much! Here are a few photos of him in his gown.