My premature aging continues.

I feel like if I don't write something now, even if it's not particularly interesting or witty, I will never get it out and it will be added to my exhaustive mental list of "things I should write about so I don't forget."

Bug had her second eye surgery on Thursday.

Doing this with a five-year-old is completely different than doing it with a two-year-old.

6:45 AM arrival

We had talked about it beforehand, and she was nervous about it in a really standard way, although we didn't encounter much fight until it came time to drink the "pink juice" (some kind of amazing, hallucinogenic concoction that probably most closely resembles Valium).  They had given it to her before her last surgery as well, and she had absolutely no recollection of going into the OR.

This is what they should give children each and every time they are anesthetized, so they do not develop a fear of The Mask.  Because Bug has been sedated several other times without this magic juice, she has a fear of The Mask.  Let's be honest.  Everyone has the wiggles about The Mask.  

Before the juice, believe it or not.

But the juice.  It's a teaspoon.  It's not that much.  She doesn't want to drink the goddamn juice.  She is yelling and screaming about the juice.  She does her patented "NO DON'T HOLD ME DOWN NO NO NO DON'T HOLD ME DOWN" that is like a siren call for CPS.  Somehow after much struggling with a rather large audience that includes her very respectable anesthesiologist (who has four kids, the eldest of which attend Stanford, Berkeley and Princeton, respectively, and who would, I'm sure, never have acted this way) and several nurses, we finally get it shoved into her mouth with a plastic syringe.

Five minutes later, and THE PARTY HAS STARTED.  Oh whatever is in this cup, please give me several hundred tablespoons.  She is having a blast.  She is, essentially, drunk, swaying around and laughing at incoherent personal jokes.

When she is deemed sufficiently buzzed, and when we have had a chance to talk with her surgeon, they get ready to wheel her off.  The anesthesiologist tells her to give me a kiss, and she gives him a look like he's grown several tails.  When we ask her what's going on, it is revealed that she was convinced the anesthesiologist was asking if he could kiss me, and she "thought that was weird," and then all of us couldn't stop snickering.  I gave her a teary kiss and she was off!

Of course the wait took entirely too long.  We knew the original plan, and we knew that her doctor reserved the right to deviate from the original plan based on what he saw when he got in there.  When we hit hour two, I had a bad feeling that things had not gone as originally planned.

Eventually he came out to talk with us.  The surgery was successful, but yes, he had to do some additional things.  He was able to tighten her outer muscles, but had to make a few cuts in other muscles to accommodate.  Blah.  Not what we had hoped, but not as bad as it could have been.  We walked through a bunch of minutiae with him, because he knows I love it, and then he left, and we waited about three times as long as the last time (that is to say, perhaps an entire five minutes) for them to come and get us because she was waking up.

When we walked back there and I didn't hear screaming, I figured it was a good sign.  Usually when she wakes up from anesthesia she is MAD.  Her post-op from her first surgery was terrible -- she was screaming and crying and all those bloody tears running down her face … it was bad.  This time she was groggy but not crying.

She slowly woke up, sort of opened both eyes (grossssssssss), closed them again, and then we got her changed and into the car.

Somehow we made it through the car ride with no barfs.

We had to stop at the glasses store on the way home to get her new lenses put in.  The surgery was done to eliminate the prisms in her lenses, so we had to have new len$e$$$$$$ made without prisms for immediately after surgery (and then other new ones a few months after this, when her eyes have settled and her prescription has likely changed again).  It took FOR-EV-ER for them to get the new lenses in.

Then we were home.

And she was miserable.

But she wouldn't take anything.

And we fought like a bunch of psychotic lunatics.

The stubbornness that my child possesses … well let's just say sometimes I cling on to some tiny bit of hope that it may serve her well and constructively at some point in her life, because it makes me want to stab out my eyes right now.

Her: "My eyes hurt!!!"
Me: "Then you need to take some medicine.  If you take some medicine, it will help!"
"NOOOOOOOOO!!!! I AM NOT TAKING ANY MEDICINE EVER AGAIN IN MY LIFE."
"OKAY, fine.  Don't take it."
"MY EYESS HURRRRRRTTTTT!"
"All you have to do is chew three tablets!  THREE!!!"
"NOOOOOOOO!!!"
"Fine."

"MY EYES HURT SO BAAAAAAAAAADDDDDD."  Crying.
"OMFG JUST TAKE THE GODDAMN TYLENOL ALREADY."
"NOOOOOOO!!!!!!"

Repeat about twenty times.

She never took anything.

I wanted to OD on whatever we had in the house.  And stab myself with lots of sharp things.  And find a tall bridge to jump off of.

But she did allow ice, which she never allowed before.

Somehow later that day she actually opened both eyes!  A record!  But holy shit it looked absolutely disgusting!

Then that was the last that we saw of both eyes for two days.

Blind frozen yogurt consumption.  

She slept in bed with me that first night, and Matt got bumped to the couch.

Friday Matt went back to work, and we were left to fend with each other alone.  I saw the tiniest bit of left eye, but no right eye.  At least she could get around this way (sort of).  We think we got an eye open much sooner this time around because she's inherently more independent than when she was two (when it took five days to get her to open them).  Also she hated the idea of having a TV on that she could not watch.

Still refused the Tylenol.

We tried bribes and veiled threats about opening the other eye (try walking around with one eye open, and you will probably bump into lots of things and make generally unsafe decisions) but it completely backfired and devolved into lots of screaming and yelling.

Friday evening we took her to get new shoes.  I mean, the least we could do is get her a new pair of shoes?  She loves shoes.  Still only one eye.

New shoes. 

This morning I asked her if I could go to track, or if she wanted me to stay home with her (Matt was also home, obviously).  She said she wanted me to stay home with her.  I couldn't really refuse her.  But I feel like a busted can of biscuits because I haven't worked out in any capacity since Tuesday.  I know that sounds ridiculous because it's like a speck of dust in the grand scheme of life, but it feels like I took a year off.  And I'm getting my period.

But staying home did pay off because late this morning she actually opened her right eye!  And OMFG  IT LOOKS SO GROSS.  It's so hard to look at.  It makes me so nauseous.  But she was so excited she was all in my face, "LOOK MOM, I'M OPENING MY EYES!"  And I was like, "Oh, that is so great, I'm so proud of you!" BARF.

I won't share the pictures.

And now she is having the MOST EPIC of EPIC drawn out tantrums about who even knows what to REALLY tempt our neighbors to call the police and all I can think (other than wanting to find something tall to jump off of again) is, "oh, I guess you're feeling better?"  And also, "IF YOU KEEP SCREAMING LIKE THAT YOU ARE GOING TO REALLY SCREW UP YOUR EYES!"  And, "if the police show up they're going to want to know why your eyes look like bloody red jell-o and I don't know that they're going to wait for my explanation."