Baby's operation brings no sleep,worry

April 1, 2007

The Princess had an inordinately rough week. Due to guilt by association, so did her mother.

Her constant ear infections over six of the 11 months she's lived, necessitated tubes being put into her ears this past week.

This surgery is not a lengthy procedure, nor is it one fraught with peril. That is, unless one is the mother of an infant who has been refused breakfast, put under anesthesia, given a shot in the shoulder, and woken up in an unfamiliar hospital bed without a single graham cracker in sight.

Then the situation immediately becomes dangerous.

Did you know that, given the proper situation, an infant's shrieks can make grown men cry as well as rattle surgical instruments? I didn't know this either.

And I really don't think any less of the anesthesiologist. It's OK for men to cry, really. I just wish he'd give me back the baby's pacifier - after he's washed it and sanitized it.

The baby came through perfectly fine. An hour after the surgery, she was enjoying breakfast, munching on her beloved graham crackers and unrolling two rolls of toilet paper in the bathroom of the hospital room.

Her mother, who hadn't slept at all the night before, because although things rarely go wrong with this sort of common surgery, there's always that chance that something could go wrong. It was this potential for wrongness that kept mom up all night the evening before and caused her to gaze with longing at the warm, soft wheeled bed in the hospital recovery room.

The nice, sweet nurse who took the baby's vitals, saw my glance and told me with a look to not even think about it.

She also informed me that I would need to wait for a while before we could leave to ensure the baby was fine, and that she would be in to check the child's vital signs every 15 minutes or so.

The next time she came in, she was treated to a glimpse of the toilet paper art my daughter had made in the bathroom, and my slightly, too-innocent face.

She told me we were free to leave then.

I didn't ask her why she didn't check my daughter's vital signs. It seemed a moot point when the subject in question had just taken off, speed-racer style through the open door and down the hallway.

I think the hysterical giggling also concerned her. But, I assured her that was the way I always laughed.

A phone call I got later, told me I wasn't the only one who had a sleepless night.

My husband had been extremely distressed about not being a physical part of this experience.

When my husband found out about the surgery, he spent hours researching the surgery and scouring what information he could about it. He knew the technical name of the procedure she was having, and could probably draw an accurate map of an infant's inner ear. He knew what the after affects would be and when she could have a bath again. He knew what her reaction to the surgery would entail and exactly how the surgeon was going to operate. He knew the entire procedure, barring any complications, would be done in under an hour.

Again, I knew my daughter was going to have tubes put in her ears. That pretty much summed up my research.

When he called, an hour and a half after the surgery, I told him we were just getting our coats on to head home.

He panicked.

My wonderful, intelligent, research-happy, analytical husband had forgotten the most important factor when it comes to his baby girl.

He'd forgotten that when it came to his Princess, he tends to neglect the most obvious facts because he is blinded by love.

When I told him we were headed home when he called, he looked at the clock, saw it was 10 p.m., and thought we'd been at the hospital for over 16 hours.

When he called me in Alaska from outside of Baghdad, he overlooked a simple fact.

There is, and always has been, a 12-hour time change. Actually, eleven hours since daylight saving time.

I assured him we were perfectly fine and happy and that his daughter was merrily wearing graham crackers, occasionally eating them.

I also informed him that it was only 10 a.m. in Alaska.

Tiffany Horvath is the mother of two and the stepmother of one. Her husband, Drew, is deployed to Iraq. She writes every Sunday abut life at home for the wife of a deployed

soldier.