Today was the first of the two eye surgeries that Lily needs to have done. We, mistakenly, thought that they were going to do both procedures at once but since that is not the plan we went ahead with the first one today – a simple tear duct probing. Lily, along with a ton of other kids, has had an issue of blocked tear ducts. It’s especially common in kids with Down syndrome and a lot of the time it resolves itself. When it doesn’t, as was the case with Lily, they go in and do a simple procedure to unblock the tear duct. We were actually shocked at how fast it was (less than 45 minutes) and while they had originally recommended that we spend the night, anesthesiology was so happy with how she held up that they let us go home right away. While we were originally a bit hesitant (our post-traumatic stress coming out), now that we’re home, we are grateful to sleep in our own beds.
It was an odd place to be in emotionally today. We knew, logically and without a doubt, that this was the easiest surgery that Lily has ever had and we love her ophthalmologist so we knew she was in great hands. But we kept flashing back to June 2011 and thinking something similar – this is a regular surgery, it’s common for kids with Down syndrome and they see it all of the time. But that surgery changed our entire lives and while we knew that it wasn’t going to happen again that worry is a hard one to put to rest. It certainly didn’t help that as we were having our last discussion with the anesthesiologist a code blue was called in the recovery unit. It was just another reminder than even when you’re not expecting it life can hand you totally new cards. But we had to out those fears aside, kiss our girl goodbye (who barely even noticed we were gone – she went happily with the nurse!) and hope that we had time for lunch (we barely did).
So now we’re home – safe and sound and with way fewer tears than before. Lily did not enjoy the recovery process and cried/shrieked for the entire car ride home. It wasn’t until after she crashed for a good long nap (with me right beside her) and got some food in her tummy that she started to come around. And now, even though she still seems a little punch drunk from the medicine, she’s back to her funny ways. In the end, while it wasn’t a good day, it certainly wasn’t a bad one.
