MISS TOUGH STUFF

Aleita had her tonsils out this morning. We had to be at the hospital at 6AM to start the pre-op stuff. At 7:30AM, the nurse wheeled her back to the operating room. She held my hand all the way to the doors where we had to part as she was wheeled along on the gurney looking way too small for that big bed. We then gave her hugs and kisses and told her we would see her soon. I thought she might get upset about us leaving her, but she was ok - - she had her little blanket and her beloved little dog, Crusty, with her. (Crusty was aptly named because she got him when she was a baby and would chew on him all the time, thus, Crusty.) In actuality, she was better than I was. I trusted the doctors and nurses to take good care of her. Still, it was hard to leave my baby.

In about a half an hour, the receptionist in the surgery waiting room came and got us and told us that she was out of surgery. The doctor came and spoke with us and said that all went well. He said her tonsils were huge, but that the operation went without a hitch. We waited about twenty more minutes in the waiting area, then were able to go back and see her.

She was doing that sob that starts way down in your body and makes the whole body shake. It was one of those that it takes you a few minutes to stop doing, even after you've stopped crying. She reached for my hand, and I asked the nurse in my nicest do-it-now voice to please put the bed rail down so I could get to her. The first thing she said to me in her weak, little not-quite-awake voice was, "I want to go home now." She wanted me to crawl in the bed beside her as much as I wanted to be right there with her. She climbed on my lap and within a few minutes, her sobbing ceased and she fell asleep laying on me. Since I got up at 4:30AM this morning, it didn't take me long to follow suit. We slept in the bed for about an hour until Rev. Ellen came by to check on her.

After that, her nurse came by and told us that she had to drink a certain amount before she would be allowed to go home. Within about an hour and a half, Aleita had drank all the required amount (and made three trips to the potty.) After the third trip back from the bathroom, you could not even tell that this child had had any form of surgery that morning. Chris had told her before she left for the bathroom the last time that once she got back, one of the ladies (the nurses) would come and let her go home. She came hopping along as we walked back, making sure to only hop on the blue tiles. Once we reached her bed, she refused to sit in it, instead peeking around her curtain and calling out to the nurses at the station, "hey lady! come let me go home!"

As the nurse was removing her IV and giving us discharge instructions and prescriptions, Aleita said, "I'm hungry - let's go eat breakfast." On the way from the hospital, she insisted on calling both sets of grandparents and chatted them up. We dropped the prescription off at Walgreen's, but it was 45 minutes before it would be ready. I had told her yesterday that once she had her tonsils out, she could have pancakes. She said, "let's go get pancakes!" And so we did. My daughter who only hours earlier had had a tonsilectomy got to go to the Cracker Barrel. She ate an entire pancake and two scrambled eggs.

She fell asleep on the way home and is now napping upstairs. They say that "only the strong survive." If that is true, then I have no doubt that Little Miss Tough Stuff will live forever.