babyfruit: the miscarriage blog and motherhood diaries

Anesthesia Aggression

It has been a hellacious week. And I have the battle wounds to prove it.

NG had a successful strabismus correction surgery last Monday. After the initial shock of it all and nursing a baby in pain, we all finally settled down into the usual chaos of getting ready to move.

She returned to daycare last Friday and attended on Monday. On Tuesday, I brought her to daycare and right before I left, she took a spill.

And hit her brow on the leg of a table.

And split open her eyebrow.

We rushed her to the emergency care clinic. The doctor there said she would need stitches but that he didn't have a plastic surgeon on board so we'd be taking our chances and would have to hold her down as she struggled.

Plastic surgeon?

I immediately called her eye surgeon who gave us 2 options:

1. meet her at the emergency room and take our chances that we can get the procedure done without too much of a battle on NG's part;

2. schedule day surgery for later in the day, put her under general anesthesia, and let the doctor perform the stitching without any struggle.

We opted for #2. But that meant keeping NG calm and without food or drink all day. She ate breakfast at 8am and surgery was scheduled for 5pm.

It was incredibly stressful trying to placate a toddler who was starving, thirsty and nursing a gash on her brow. Not to mention taking her to her 2nd surgery in a week's time.

We were emotionally spent as we went to the recovery room to see her. It took all of my energy not to collapse into a puddle of pee on the floor. Surgery went well. Double layer of stitches. Gash was to the bone.

Our 80-year-old neighbors invited us to dinner after the surgery which was a saving grace. Then NG proceeded to projectile vomit all over me. Poor thing. We washed our clothes in their washing machine and I ended up putting on half-wet jeans because it was getting late and we had to get back to our hotel to sleep. We were near incoherence at that point.

Then, the aggression.

The next day, NG was horrible. Aggressive. Angry. She clawed at my face (hence the battle wounds). She tried to push me off the toilet as I was trying to pee, screaming "I go potty first, not you!!!!" She fought me. Talked back. Screamed a high pitch ear drum shattering scream. If she could have killed me, I think she would have tried.

My first thought was that it was the anesthesia but I had never heard of this. I called my naturopath and left a message for advice.

By the time I met G. for lunch with NG in tow, I was shaking uncontrollably. He saw my distress (nice when husbands are observant) and offered to take NG to her eye doctor appointment.

G. found out that yes, the aggression was indeed caused by the anesthesia still in her system. It would take 3-4 days to get out of her system.

We're on Day 3. Wish us luck.

She is doing really well!

Thanks for all emails, calls, Tweets, etc. checking on NG. Here she is in all her glorious bravery.

At the surgery center

Brought my iPhone to the surgery center as we wait for NG's eye surgery to correct strabismus. Surgery started at 7:30am and will last over an hour. Brought food to snack on and sipping coffee while trying not to focus on my fear.

I'm actually not afraid of the surgery or of the risks to her eyes or eyesight. I am afraid of the anesthesia. Like I said to G, I can handle having a blind child. I can't handle a dead one.

But enough of the morbid thoughts. I hope we chose to do the right thing. In August, her eye surgery was cancelled because her eyes stopped crossing the night before the surgery. Yesterday, her eyes were crossing like crazy. This morning they were straight. But they are proceeding.

Just last week I learned that once she has the surgery, she will probably need it again at some point in her life. Without it, her brain would eventually ignore one of her eyes, affecting her sight and depth perception.

But still I hope we made the right decision to operate. If something goes wrong, I don't think I could handle the guilt.

This is not about me. This is about her and about us. This is about my family and my baby girl.