Let me first start by sayin: Glad this day is OVER! Whew. I am exhausted. So today was Joslin’s eye surgery and through out the day as things happened I made notes in my new iPhone. Gosh I love this phone. All the pictures came from the phone as well. Bonus! Anywho, here goes:

5:16 – Woke up and got ready to take Joslin to the hospital. Primary Childrens in SLC. Forgot to wake up Juli so she could give Joslin one more little drink of juice.

5:51 – Woke Joslin up and put her in the car.

6:00 – Out the door, heading to the hospital. Wouldn’t ya know it there was no gas in the car. Fortunately, there wasn’t any traffic either so we did ok.

6:40 – Arrived at the hospital and found a parking spot right next to the entrance. Tender mercies of the Lord there.

6:45 – Checked in at the pre-op desk

6:59 – Finished registration and took Joslin to the first waiting room. I could tell that she was starting to get nervous. She recognized this place from the last time she was here for her MRI.

7:16 – Nurse came and got us and took us back to the physical room. Jos is really getting nervous now. Asks for her “baby” for comfort. The nurse took all her vitals and said that another nurse would be in with instructions. She left some hospital jammies for Jos to wear during the surgery.

7:19 – Jos is in new pajamas and we are waiting for the next nurse.

7:22 – Next nurse comes in gives us instructions of what was going to happen next. Asks if Joslin is going to be ok going with the Anesthesiologist when the times comes. I ask Joslin if that will be ok and and without skipping a beat she answered with a resounding ‘NO!” We talked about giving her medicine that I call ‘the silly juice’ (great stuff by the way). I agree to it.

7:29 – Nurse takes us to the 3rd waiting room before she goes into surgery. Jos immediately sees where the dolls are in the room and takes off for them. I let her play as long as I could.

7:34 – Yet another nurse comes and administers the silly juice. This time I need to hold her because she was going to get pretty wobbly. This hospital has red wagons that they take the kids back to surgery in. I declined because I wanted to hold my little girl.

7:45 – Jos is a riot! She is laughing and we are rubbing noses. She can’t stop laughing and finds everything funny!

7:56 – Doctor Larson comes out and gives last minute instructions and asks if I have any questions. We talk about what to do in case of vomiting or coughing, bright lights, wind, etc. He goes back in and says that the anesthesiologist will come out next and take her back. This whole morning I have been feeling nauseous, not sure if it was breakfast or if I am getting really nervous about this.

8:10 – Jos is somewhere between la-la land and the hospital waiting room. She is in and out of sleep and being extremely cute. She trusts me so explicitly.

8:11 – The anesthesiologist is here. Instead of taking Jos from me he asks me to follow him down the hall for surgery. As we talked I got the distinct impression that he would take care of my princess. I knew it. As we approached the final door before he had to take her, I gave Joslin one last kiss (I had been kissing on her all morning I realized) and handed her to the doctor. She thought that was pretty funny. I watched her go away in his arms.

8:12 – I cried.

8:14 – Found yet another waiting room to wait in. As I sat down, I saw parents who looked as everything was right in the world and were there for routine procedures and I saw parents that were there who looked like their world was about to come apart. I just wanted to run and take Joslin with me. I am so grateful that our kids have been so healthy. What a blessing.

8:22 – I called Juli and texted my mom that she was in surgery.

8:34 – Juli calls me back with additional questions.

8:58 – Still waiting. The doctor said that the operation would take about an hour. Realized I had brought a peach mango flavored drink with me. Woohoo.

9:11 – Dr. Larson came in and said that everything was fine. The surgery went off without a problem. He then told me that he couldn’t believe the anesthesiologist he had. He said that he was good. So good that he was a head of schedule for the day. I knew he was good because Heavenly Father was watching out for her. I was told that in a few minutes I would be taken to her and help her wake up.

9:23 – Nurse finally calls my name to take me to the post-op area where Joslin is. She is laying on her side that didn’t have the surgery so I couldn’t see how bad it was. I was told I could pick her up and hold her. As I did, I could see that she looked like she had been on the business end of a baseball bat. Poor eye was blood red and pretty swollen. The nurse found us a recovery room to go to and so we made our way there.

9:25 – I am still holding Jos. The nurse gave her a sippy cup of juice which I then asked if we could have a bottle. Joslin still doesn’t drink from sippy cups and the nurse very kindly told me how to get her off of bottles. Gee thanks. Her instructions were that if she could stay alert for 20 minutes or so and drink all the juice that she could go home. Well she doesn’t know my daughter.

9:27 – Juice is gone.

9:27:47 – Juice is screaming for more juice. (Juice is my new nickname for boo-bear)

9:28 – More juice arrives along with a popsicle.

9:31 – Juice is gone again. Can we get a refill please?

9:45 – Nurse comes by, says everything looks good and gives me final instructions. She calls a nursing student over to take off the monitors and take out the IV. I say that my sister is in nursing school too. She asks where and I say ASU. And she says, ‘Oh, Arizona State’ like it was some kind of backwater school. I say yes and she rolls her eyes. See that Hanny? It’s on between University of Utah and ASU. Represent well girl!

10:24 – We are cleared to go and Joslin is dressed and ready to leave.

10:40 – Find the pharmacy and pick up eye drops for Joslin. That’s going to be fun!

10:59 – Texted Juli to let her know that we are on our way home. That was quite the ride. The hospital gave us these arm braces to put on so that she would not scratch her eyes. I decided that I was going to put them on for the ride home because I was by myself and didn’t want to crash trying to keep her from scratching. Well that wasn’t too well received. As evident by the pictures I took. I guess I didn’t put them on tight enough because she found a way to get them off. As soon as I gave her a bottle though she held that and forgot about her eyes. She was pretty miserable though. I had just enough juice and peach mango flavored water to get us home.

11:28 – Arrived home to momma’s lovin arms.

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And that was just the morning! We struggled today putting in the eye drops. She obviously didn’t like us messing around with her eyeballs. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. We had to watch her through out the afternoon and she did pretty well. She sneezed one time though and that about killed her. After the sneeze this look came on her face and it stayed. I think she was wondering if her eyes were still there. It was the most pathetic face. (picture below)

Well it’s over now and I am exhausted. For all those that kept us in your thoughts and prayers, thank you! We felt it. Thank you.

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Before:

After:

At home finally:

the “Sneeze”