Pre-op

We went to the library today and picked up a hospital book by Mr. Rogers. Megan carefully studied every picture. And we read through the book a couple of times. The pictures are dated, but it really is a fabulous book.

I had forgotten how kind and child centered Mr. Rogers was. On the page about getting blood drawn, it reminded the reader that it is OK to cry if you need to and not to worry about the blood being taken out, because your body will make more. It never occurred to me that a child would worry about losing their blood. Although it should have, because Megan tends to have that kind of outside the box concern.

The question she keeps bringing up is what will happen if Dr. B. pokes her {insert body part here - belly, neck, tongue, etc.} during the surgery. My job as a parent has been to try to figure out the question behind the question.

At first I thought it was just nervousness and I answered with a description of skill. Dr. Brew, I would tell her, when to school for a long time, and studied very hard, and practices all the time and won't make any mistakes. But that wasn't it.

So I figured that she just what if -ing and I needed to give an answer about what would happen, if the improbable happened. But that wasn't it, because the scenarios just got more elaborate.

Tonight, I finally figured out that she has been trying to figure out the anatomy and the logistics of the whole thing. She knows, roughly, where her adenoids are, because we had looked at pictures in the doctor's office. And she has been trying to figure out how the surgeon get up there to take them out. Luckily in my obsessive adenoid googling I had come across a description of the surgery technique. So I told her what I remembered and made up the rest. And she finally seemed satisfied.

Tomorrow we will be out the door early, we have to leave at 6:45. But the surgery center has wireless access, so Bryan or I will update through out the day.