Well, actually that is a name her father calls her. She is my 4, almost 5, year old daughter. She had surgery on Monday to repair the hole in her ear. It wasn't a difficult procedure, but did take about an hour.
We arrived at the hospital around 7 am. It was at OSF St. Francis Outpatient surgery. Dr. Gootee was going to take a piece of tissue from her ear lobe and place it over the hole, fill her ear with ointment and let it grow together. Mikayla brought her stuffed puppy along with us. After arriving and parking our van, we took a ride on the cart to the hospital entrance. We registered (funny point: The lady who called out name said Linedhall... never heard that one before.) and then were told to head to the 3rd floor. Up to the surgery floor we went. We were shown to a room that had 4 different "rooms", only walls were curtains. Mikayla saw the toys and took her puppy to one of the cars and started to play.
The nurse gave me a hospital outfit to put on her and I told Mikayla that we had to play dress-up. She got changed and returned to playing. When the nurse came in, she had a basket of hats for Mikayla to pick through. They were home made by a group of ladies to help kids feel special when they have to come for surgery... TOO SWEET!!
We arrived at the hospital around 7 am. It was at OSF St. Francis Outpatient surgery. Dr. Gootee was going to take a piece of tissue from her ear lobe and place it over the hole, fill her ear with ointment and let it grow together. Mikayla brought her stuffed puppy along with us. After arriving and parking our van, we took a ride on the cart to the hospital entrance. We registered (funny point: The lady who called out name said Linedhall... never heard that one before.) and then were told to head to the 3rd floor. Up to the surgery floor we went. We were shown to a room that had 4 different "rooms", only walls were curtains. Mikayla saw the toys and took her puppy to one of the cars and started to play.
The nurse gave me a hospital outfit to put on her and I told Mikayla that we had to play dress-up. She got changed and returned to playing. When the nurse came in, she had a basket of hats for Mikayla to pick through. They were home made by a group of ladies to help kids feel special when they have to come for surgery... TOO SWEET!! 
Mikayla picked a cow one first (no surprise, cows are one of her favorite animals), but then quickly changed when she saw a Strawberry shortcake one. 
She looked too cute. Then the waiting began. Her surgery was the second one Dr. Gootee was going to perform. After waiting about an hour and a half, the nurse came in and said it was time. Mikayla climbed into one of the riding cars, put her puppy in the small compartment, waved bye to me and off they went. I went down to the waiting area where they give you a pager and a number. The number tells you where the patient is on the screen and then is color coded to what they are doing with them. I watched the screen for a while, but found it to be quite tiring as you wait to see if there are any changes in status. After about an hour, I see that the status did change and her surgery is over. Dr. Gootee called down on the hospital phone to say all had gone as expected and I would get to see her in recovery.Then the hard part. Seeing your child hooked up to monitors, IV in her hand, A drop of drying blood on the blanket, slowly waking from the medicine.... WOW!
Talk about pulling at the heart strings of a mom!! She was in stage 1 recovery for about 15 minutes. The nurse pulled over a chair so I could rock her. She soon woke up and said "Momma". I picked her up and sat in the rocking chair. She cried that the IV hurt her hand. I tried to be reassuring, but all I could do was cry. We were then moved to stage 2 recovery where I rocked her s
ome more. Mikayla continued to complain about the IV in her hand and how much it hurt. The nurse came in and asked if she would like some juice. I said yes. She really didn't want to drink any, but I told her that she would need to drink some in order to get the IV out. She took a few sips and then was done. Mikayla still wanted the IV removed...but the nurses wanted to wait and make sure she could keep the juice down. She cried and cried. The only thing I could think to do was sing. So I asked Mikayla if she wanted me to sing her a song. She nodded yes. I asked her if she wanted me to sing Jesus Loves Me. Again she nodded. So I began to sing. Tears welled up in my eyes and I choked on my cries as I sang. I sand that song about 20 times and before I knew it, she was fast asleep again. The nurse came in after a bit and saw she was sleeping. She said she would return in a bit to remove her IV when Mikayla woke up. She slept for about 10 minutes and the was awake again. The nurse removed her IV, blood presure cuff, and got her ready to go. One of the hospital volunteers brought in a wheelchair and took us out to the parking deck.
