Sydney's Surgery

Right around Christmas time I was giving Sydney a shower and I noticed she had a weird lump on her lowers stomach.  It felt squishy when I touched it.  The next day it was gone.  I kept an eye on it.  I would see it off and on.  Finally, about two weeks ago, I took her to see our pediatrician who could not see it.  He suspected it was an inguinal hernia.  He referred us up to Primary Children's in Riverton and we met with a surgeon there.  He also could not see it, but he wanted to go ahead and schedule surgery!  Crazy, I thought, I could totally be making this up and they want to operate?  The doctor reassured me and said my description was that of a hernia and there was really no other thing it could possibly be.  okay....I scheduled the surgery with the promise of the surgeon that when I saw the hernia again, I would take a picture and text it to him and he would confirm that it was a hernia.  :)  The hernia reappeared the next day and I didn't take a picture, it was convincing enough on it's own that something needed fixed.  :0  This past Thursday was the big day!  We had to be at the hospital at 6:20 AM. 

 Sydney at the Lorax tree at the entrance.

 Waiting patiently for the nurse.  She was excited!

 Playing doctor in the pre-op waiting area.  It was so funny, because I had explained to her what was going to happen and she was totally cool with it.  They had the child life specialist come visit her and Sydney was not even interested, she was ready for it.  (I had told her that she would go with the doctor to a room where they would give her magic potion to make her sleep.  She thought that was AWESOME.  

 Heading to surgery.  The plan was to fix the hernia and then check her other side to make sure there was no issue there.  She was done in about 40 minutes.  It was quite a while until she started waking up and she was soooo groggy.  It took us a while to get out of there.

 Trying to smile.

 She ate her two popsicles and was antsy to get home.

She loved all the attention she got.  She was back on her feet in no time, in fact, I spent the rest of the day trying to keep her from climbing on things.  Nothing slows her down.  Matt and I had a nice, relaxing 40 minute wait during surgery where we talked and read magazines and had a few snacks.  Much more enjoyable than our last visit to the surgery waiting room where we were on pins and needles for hours, praying that the doctors could successfully remove Derek's tumor and there would be no cancer.  Whew....we both mentioned multiple times how low-key and stress-free Sydney's surgery was.  We are grateful for the miracle of modern medicine!