Understatement

"He might be a little disoriented or agitated upon emerging from anesthesia," she said, "It won't last very long."

M had that extra tooth removed this morning. After a fight with insurance over how much anesthesia they would cover, it was done in one of the clinic procedure rooms rather than the OR.

The procedure itself went fine, and we have the extra tooth with us now. It's a little thing, smaller than a baby tooth, but had a fully formed root, etc.

It was the couple of hours after the procedure that have left me rather traumatized.

M wasn't just a little agitated or disoriented upon emerging from anesthesia. He was thrashing and moaning and crying and kicking and wailing. He pulled out his IV. They managed to get another one in to give him a sedative, but even with the sedative, he was thrashing and crying for about an hour after we came in to the recovery room.

I think I really lost it when, at one point, M wailed, "I can't do this anymore. I'm not going to do this anymore." I had an instant flashback to the first awful overnight in the PICU with C, before he crashed and coded, when we were trying to get him to use the pressurized mask to get better oxygen saturation. C said exactly the same thing - exactly - as he threw the mask off his face; his body was getting so tired at that point and we knew things were getting very critical.

We were practically laying on top of M to keep him safe - not hitting his head on the wall, not pulling out his 2nd IV, things like that. It was physically challenging beyond the emotional challenge of seeing your baby going through something like that.

For the most part, the team was good. One of the residents was trying to hang out with us, but finally my husband said, "I'm not comfortable with this, with what is going on. I want an attending here." The resident left in a huff, the attending arrived, and as much as I like our surgeon, I felt like I never had the whole story of what the process could be.

Finally, finally, he started to settle down. He made us promise he's never have to go through this again. We were happy to do so - we never want to do anything like this again, either. We got him ice chips and water. He didn't want the popsicle we tried.

After a couple hours, we were ready to leave. M was wobbly, but wanted to walk. There are lots of blood stains in his clothes, my clothes, my husband's clothes. C and S have been sports, mostly, but S is a little scared of how M looks.

As we were leaving, I saw that resident (the one we asked to get the attending) in the hall. He looked straight at me, then turned away without acknowledging us. Asshole. You are a RESIDENT. You are in TRAINING. Someday, a parent will ask for an attending, and that attending will be you, but for now, don't take everything so fucking personally. Meanwhile, LEARN! And learn how to work with patients - and patient's parents - instead of being an asshole and walking out of a recovery room in a huff.

M is swollen and uncomfortable. He has trouble swallowing. The stitches behind his front teeth are annoying and bothersome, he says. I took him for ice cream (or local seasonal shop opened today). He ate it very slowly. I took him into the toy store next to the ice cream shop and asked if there was anything he wanted. He looked around a bit, but said no. Man.

Now we are on to laying low and soft foods. I feel emotionally wrung out. M is doing okay.