Audrey's surgery

Today Audrey had three abnormal appearing moles removed. Two from her scalp and one from her belly button. Her pediatrician, dermatologist and plastic surgeon all agreed it was good to remove them. We now wait 10 days for results. The surgeon did say he removes more than 2500 moles a year and only 10% come back abnormal, and 10% of the 10% only appear very serious. So, in all, 1% chance of it coming back as anything too bad. But because these were in places that you don't see just by looking at her, or she wouldn't see in years to come by herself, it was good to just remove them. The one on the back of her head I had seen a year or two ago and just thought it was a birth mark. Then, this winter when she had the crazy flu and vomited an insane amount in 24 hours and I was up with her all night long, I noticed when I pulled her hair back in piggy tails that that spot had changed and maybe gotten bigger. This alarmed me and so we got it checked out. While meeting with the plastic surgeon, his nurse found another one on the side of her head and her pediatrician early this week saw one on her belly that she's had forever, but that he didn't like either. So, since we were already there, we had them remove that one too.

This procedure was just as hard on Audrey's nerves and emotions as the last one she had when she was 2.5. I wasn't as nervous though and neither was Jeremy. She did have Versed beforehand to calm her down before they wheeled her down the hall to the surgery area. She was never screaming or making a scene, just in tears and very scared. The nurses said she was asleep when she arrived at the operating room. We watched the board, looking for her number to see if she was in surgery, in recovery, etc, read the news, watched the news, etc. She slept for over an hour after she got out--so tuckered out by all her emotions and the Versed for sure and the anesthesia too. When she got awake enough to start asking for Daddy they moved her to her final recovery room where she was offered juice and popsicles, and graham crackers. She must have been famished because she didn't even seem to mind that her hand was yellow with IV tape. She sat on Jeremy's lap and watched the rest of her Barbie movie that they offered her. We got her dressed and they took out her IV without her fainting--yipee, although Daddy had to look away and a nurse poked fun at him and thought it funny that he couldn't look. He couldn't leave the room this time, as Audrey was sitting on his lap. Interestingly though, she complained, a lot, about the band-aid they put on her IV injection site. (Note, they don't put the IV in here until the kids are asleep. Whew. That was a huge relief). She just didn't like it. And wanted it off.

We promised her a toy afterward so we went to a local Target, and walked up and down the aisles until she settled on a My Little Pony remote control car.

Sarah