We took Cole to the Dr. today for his pre-op appointment. What? Did I not mention that he is having surgery Friday? Huh. Well, he is.
Cole was born with a hemangioma and it has not disappeared yet, so we are having it removed. It is on his back and quite visible. With summer coming up, which brings swimming lessons and fun at the pool, we decided to remove it before other kids have an opportunity to harass him about it. Having his brother poke at it seems like enough ridicule to me. The plastic surgeon recommended we wait a few years to have it removed, when it would “be easier to keep him calm for the month after surgery”, which – if you have a kid at all would make you wonder what kind of crack she was smoking. It is NEVER going to be easy to keep him still. Not now – as a rambunctious almost-3-year-old and not in a few years – when he is involved in sports. So, now it is.
They will give him something they lovingly refer to as goofy juice, which will, I assume, make him goofy. Then they will take him away and put him to sleep. They will cut the hemangioma out, stitch the area, and send him on his way. At least that is how I understand it is supposed to happen. Of course my insane mother-mind takes all sorts of other directions when I think through what could go wrong, but it sounds like a simple, easy surgery, and he should be able to go home later in the day.
Right now I think our biggest hurdle will be keeping him calm when he realizes that he can have nothing to eat or drink the morning of surgery. I feel for the medical staff he is going to go off on, although with my hate of medical personnel in general, I think they deserve what is headed their way.