Happy Valentine's Day!

We spent ours with a combination tonsillectomy/ adenoidectomy and recovery therefrom.

How romantic, you say.

I can tell how wound up I am about an event by how well I sleep before it. Back when I was teaching, I would have a restless night before school started and semester changes, waking up three or four times. On the other hand, the night before our wedding, I fell asleep around 11 on an air mattress on the floor of Christina's apartment and didn't wake until she started moving pans around to make pancakes near 8:30.

See, I knew I was doing the right thing.

But the boy's surgery today? Forget it. I managed to fall asleep around midnight, but when Rachel woke up at 3:50 I was up. It didn't help that the alarm was set for 5 since we had to be on the road by 6 to be sure to be to the surgery center by 6:30.

Before he went in, he was a wonderful, brave, cooperative little boy despite being awakened an hour and a half before he usually wakes up. Sure, he was a little shy, but not to the point of being a problem. He had no problem being wheeled in the wagon away from us into the OR.

We went back out to the waiting room where I desperately tried not to have a nervous breakdown. There was the impulse to run back in there, grab him and scream, "Don't hurt my little boy! I don't care how routine this is for you, it sure as H*%% is not for me!"

I resisted though the hit of Versed I probably would have gotten would have helped me get through the rest of it. Instead, I vainly tried to memorize the list of school closings, discussed with another mom our sentiments, shared a bag of baby carrots (her treat) and gave her a rosary so she had something to do with her hands. It had helped me, a little. I got through the first decade of the Glorious Mysteries when the doc came out in his U-M surgery hat. All was well, no fluid in the ears so no tubes. But his tonsils were "huge, his adenoids just big."

Afterward... Dale was not so cheerful.

We got to post-op and found our little boy being cuddled by his nurse and wailing for "Mommy." It took him five seconds to realize Mommy was there and ready to hold him. He was woozy, coughing, and hurting, trying to eat a Popsicle but afraid to swallow.

Nurse went over the post-op instructions virtually repeating what the doc had said. I didn't mind; I'd rather be told twice than not at all. She pointed out the phone number but also said we'd have an 24-hour availability line and "they're really good about callbacks in this practice."

The other lady hovering nearby commented that Dale had seen the "pulse-ox" and promptly put his hand out for her to clip it on. I knew it was from the tour the week before and told them so, and we all agreed it was a great program.

Anyway, we got his aceteminophen with codeine, Daddy pulled up the Buick, and we were on our way home by 9:30. If we'd pushed it, we could have made library time. As it was, Madeleine and I got out for swim class this afternoon.

And Dale? He was up for wrestling with Daddy tonight just before prayers. I think he'll be just fine.