Daniel's Surgery

Well Daniel had to have a minor surgery last week. It wasn't a very big deal, but I kinda freaked out anyway. I started to change his diaper and noticed a weird lump right next to his rectum. I immediately showed Mike, and started looking all over the internet to find out what it was. I decided I thought it was an abscess, (which turned out to be right) and called the doctor's office. They told me to come in the next morning. I originally thought the pediatrician would just suck the gunk out with a needle and everything would be done with. Boy was I wrong!

The doctor came in and looked at it and said she needed to have the surgeon come down and see if he could drain it in the office or not. She said if he couldn't do it there, then Daniel would have to be admitted to the hospital and have surgery to remove the puss. I was kind of taken aback. A hospital stay wasn't exactly on my agenda for the day. What would I do about Mike going to work, and who would watch Phillip? Well, the surgeon finally arrived and decided the abscess was too big to drain in the office. We would have to be admitted. Great... just our luck.

Luckily I have a great friend who offered to take Phillip home with her for a while. The last thing I needed was to try and take care of a hungry, fussy three year old while trying not to break down about little Danny. I was told Daniel wouldn't be able to eat again until after his surgery. He already hadn't eaten in three hours, and they needed to wait a total of six hours before putting him under anesthesia because of the risk of aspirating into his lungs. That made me freak out, too. A couple of nurses came over and tried to put an I.V. in his arm, but after two blown veins they decided to let the pediatric nurses take care of it. At this point, I am a complete emotional mess.

We finally got admitted into the pediatric ward around 11:30 in the morning. We were told the surgery was scheduled for around five that evening. At six o'clock the nurse informs us that they are backed up in surgery, and the surgeon suggested feeding Daniel and trying again in the morning. That was not an option for me. I refuse to starve my five week old baby all day for NOTHING! So we made it pretty clear that we were under no circumstances waiting until the next day for his surgery. They weren't happy with us, but to be honest, I really could have cared less. Daniel ended up going to surgery at 11:30 that night.

The procedure itself only lasted about ten minutes. The surgeon made a one inch incision across the abscess and drained it. He said there was a lot more puss in it than he originally thought. Daniel was put on a ten day supply of the antibiotic Cleocin. He is doing great now, and seems much happier.