I was in the surgical room with Sam for all of a minute before being booted by the anesthesiologist so the dentist could get to work repairing the nursing cavities that wrapped around the backs and sides of his front teeth. We'd been in the waiting room for nearly 2 hours and had spent another 10 minutes or so in the patient prep area, where Sam played Darth Vader with the mini gas mask so as to be comfortable with the idea of having it pressed to his face. I didn't like the looks of it at all. Issued another silent prayer for the CHEO moms while looking at the stack of tiny hospital gowns and the kid-cheery artwork on the walls.
The women knew what they were doing when they popped Sam up on to the operating table and told me to "hold his hands, keep them down" (expecting him to fight the placement of the gas mask; he didn't). They gave us no time at all to take in the room and get a little comfortable with the idea of IVs and heart monitors and the rest of it. Better not to have the chance to see it all than to get anxious about the equipment and all those people in masks. Thinking back, I wonder now why there were five nurses in the room. Five?
I did a passable job, tho, of acting as though this was a regular part of dental care. And it's a good thing, because Sam fixed his wide eyes on me with the intensity of a child searching his mother's face for signs that would betray her soothing words. Already going limp, he tried to lift his foot up, to show me that someone had clamped a heart rate monitor on to it. I started to explain, but already he was losing focus. He blinked it off and pulled his eyes back to me three times, each time with a little less Sam in them. Then he was unconscious. "Give him a kiss, Mom, then out you go," said the woman in charge of keeping Sam breathing. I'd made a prep room pledge to leave without hesitation at that command. But I didn't expect it to happen so quick! I kissed Sam's forehead with an "I love you" and let go of his hands. As I backed away, his left arm dropped off the side of the table, and I had to fight the urge to step back and tuck it up gently beside him.
I passed Dr Fremeth on the way out the door. He offered a smiley "Give me 45 minutes, and we'll call you back." At the time, I would have given anything to stay in the room, but in retrospect, I know it would have been tough to watch the team thread an oxygen tube through his nose and down his throat, or find the tiny veins on the back of each hand for analgesic, anti-nauseant and hydrating liquids. And the grinding buzz of dentistry is more than I can handle when the drill is boring into my face, never mind my little bunny's. Better that I tried to pass the time reading Oprah magazines and texting Jeremy about how sick and anxious I was.
70 minutes later, Sam awoke with a strangulated cough that sprayed blood across my shirt and arms: the tubing hurt him more than anything else. Limp but desperate, he tried to say "mom!", but only the mmm's came out. The nurses led us to an armchair and wrapped us together in blankets. Sam was nearly dead weight in my arms. It took about 20 minutes of whispering and singing in his ear, but he came to slowly and moaned through the little tests that got us discharged: drank water, answered a question with words, pointed to something.
Strapped into his booster seat for the ride home, he fell back into a drugged sleep that had his slackened body fall so far to the right that I lost sight of him in the rearview mirror. Having been instructed to monitor him closely, I watched him sleep for two hours. He awoke hoarse but happy and ran to the mirror for a look at his teeth. I didn't expect there to be a noticeable repair, but Sam shouted out that his "chipped tooth" was gone (he'd smacked into a coffee table after winding himself dizzy in Noemi's curtains when he was 2). The small fillings had noticeably reduced the gap between his front teeth. A shiny, straight smile.
He admired the results for a few minutes, then this little boy who hadn't had a morsel or drop in 20 hours ate a very, very big dinner.
The women knew what they were doing when they popped Sam up on to the operating table and told me to "hold his hands, keep them down" (expecting him to fight the placement of the gas mask; he didn't). They gave us no time at all to take in the room and get a little comfortable with the idea of IVs and heart monitors and the rest of it. Better not to have the chance to see it all than to get anxious about the equipment and all those people in masks. Thinking back, I wonder now why there were five nurses in the room. Five?
I did a passable job, tho, of acting as though this was a regular part of dental care. And it's a good thing, because Sam fixed his wide eyes on me with the intensity of a child searching his mother's face for signs that would betray her soothing words. Already going limp, he tried to lift his foot up, to show me that someone had clamped a heart rate monitor on to it. I started to explain, but already he was losing focus. He blinked it off and pulled his eyes back to me three times, each time with a little less Sam in them. Then he was unconscious. "Give him a kiss, Mom, then out you go," said the woman in charge of keeping Sam breathing. I'd made a prep room pledge to leave without hesitation at that command. But I didn't expect it to happen so quick! I kissed Sam's forehead with an "I love you" and let go of his hands. As I backed away, his left arm dropped off the side of the table, and I had to fight the urge to step back and tuck it up gently beside him.
I passed Dr Fremeth on the way out the door. He offered a smiley "Give me 45 minutes, and we'll call you back." At the time, I would have given anything to stay in the room, but in retrospect, I know it would have been tough to watch the team thread an oxygen tube through his nose and down his throat, or find the tiny veins on the back of each hand for analgesic, anti-nauseant and hydrating liquids. And the grinding buzz of dentistry is more than I can handle when the drill is boring into my face, never mind my little bunny's. Better that I tried to pass the time reading Oprah magazines and texting Jeremy about how sick and anxious I was.
70 minutes later, Sam awoke with a strangulated cough that sprayed blood across my shirt and arms: the tubing hurt him more than anything else. Limp but desperate, he tried to say "mom!", but only the mmm's came out. The nurses led us to an armchair and wrapped us together in blankets. Sam was nearly dead weight in my arms. It took about 20 minutes of whispering and singing in his ear, but he came to slowly and moaned through the little tests that got us discharged: drank water, answered a question with words, pointed to something.
Strapped into his booster seat for the ride home, he fell back into a drugged sleep that had his slackened body fall so far to the right that I lost sight of him in the rearview mirror. Having been instructed to monitor him closely, I watched him sleep for two hours. He awoke hoarse but happy and ran to the mirror for a look at his teeth. I didn't expect there to be a noticeable repair, but Sam shouted out that his "chipped tooth" was gone (he'd smacked into a coffee table after winding himself dizzy in Noemi's curtains when he was 2). The small fillings had noticeably reduced the gap between his front teeth. A shiny, straight smile.
He admired the results for a few minutes, then this little boy who hadn't had a morsel or drop in 20 hours ate a very, very big dinner.
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