After a somewhat restless night, with Karl waking a few times, we had the challenge of getting through the morning without breakfast for him. He had to fast before the surgery and was very hungry, which was understandably hard for him to make sense of. A few white lies were required about where everyone else was going. Chris went out to make some ‘hospital arrangements’, otherwise known as breakfast, before Dan and Isaac headed out to make some more ‘hospital arrangements’. Breakfast at the hotel was perfectly adequate, although the buffet had a rather strange layout and it took a while to find everything. Still, the secret breakfast did the job.
Chris was keen to get going as we weren’t sure how long the drive would take, what the traffic would be like or how easy parking would be. Once Dan and Isaac returned from their arrangements, Chris and Karl headed off to the hospital. It was hard leaving the other two behind, but Isaac was too young to be allowed on the ward, so Dan stayed with him at the hotel. There were messages from the surgeon’s office along the way, coordinating quotes, prices and approvals, so there was still plenty to organise before we even got there. Karl had a brilliant suggestion along the way: perhaps we could do the hospital later and go for burgers now instead. ‘Burgers would be a great place to go, Daddy. Let’s do burgers.’ It was very clear that we had a hungry boy.
After parking, we were met at reception by the surgeon’s staff, who went through the separate quotes for the surgeon, anaesthetist and hospital. It was a fairly daunting amount to take in. Once Chris’s credit card had endured its share of the pain, we moved on to pre-admission. This involved quite a lot of explaining that we don’t live in South Africa, we’re not from South Africa, we live in New Zealand, no we don’t have a South African ID number, and no we weren’t born in South Africa either. After about twenty to thirty minutes of working through all of that, we were finally able to head up to the paediatric ward and get Karl admitted.
The ward was quite confronting. A paediatric ward is not somewhere you want to find yourself on holiday, and Chris thought the beds had a bit of an orphanage feel to them, which was unsettling. Fortunately, we weren’t there for long before the surgeon came to review Karl and explain the procedure, followed by the anaesthetist to talk through the plan. Chris would be able to go into theatre with Karl for the first part of the anaesthetic, to help make it as settled as possible for him. The surgeon also said Karl could stay in his own clothes rather than having to put on a hospital gown. Anything to make a distressing time a little easier for the poor wee thing.
When it was time to go, three staff arrived to push Karl down to theatre in what was effectively a giant crib. Karl had absolutely no intention of getting into it, so Chris carried him while the team pushed the empty bed through the lifts and down to the theatre waiting area. He did briefly get into it there, but when it was time to go into theatre he became upset again and Chris carried him in. Having to hold Karl still and help with the initial anaesthetic until he was asleep was pretty confronting for Chris too.
Dan tends to have a fairly emotional time coming round from an anaesthetic, so Chris had a suspicion Karl might be similar. Despite some strong suggestions from the staff that he go back to the ward, Chris stayed near recovery. After a nail-biting half hour or so, the surgeon came out and said it had been a complete success and was well worth doing. The cut had been deeper than expected, involving the muscle, and had needed stitches in several layers to repair it properly. The plastic surgeon had done a brilliant job. Compared with the enormous gash from the night before, you could barely see the repair.
The anaesthetist then said Karl was starting to wake up, and it wasn’t long before Chris could hear him bellowing and was called into recovery to help calm him down. Coming round was proving to be a bit tough, just like his mother. Chris was able to pick him up and get him and his big feelings under control, but the moment he tried to put him down it was clear that wasn’t going to work. A somewhat unconventional solution was found, with Chris climbing into the caged crib with Karl. The staff were a little startled to see six foot three of Chris folded into a child’s bed, but it did the job.
Once the recovery team were happy with Karl’s vitals, it was time to go back to the ward. Chris was released from his cage and carried Karl back to the room. Karl was very groggy and quite nauseous, and spent the next couple of hours dozing on and off. Eventually he woke up very hungry and was allowed to slowly work his way through the hospital lunch. Much to his delight, it was pizza and chips.
Meanwhile, Dan and Isaac had a much quieter day, mostly around the hotel room, where Isaac made sure to explore every cupboard. They did venture out to the supermarket for a few supplies, and Dan managed a bit of hand washing so that we would all have some underwear to wear home.
Once Karl had managed to eat and drink and keep it all down, the IV line was removed from his hand with surprisingly little fuss and he was discharged. Chris and Karl headed back to the hotel to a very relieved Dan, and we started organising ourselves to go across the road for dinner.
Despite the previous pizza outing ending in a trip to hospital, and having already had pizza for lunch, Karl was adamant that he wanted pizza for dinner. After the day he’d had, we couldn’t really say no. So back we went to the scene of the original accident and ordered pizza again. Fortunately, this visit was entirely uneventful, although Chris spent the whole time hovering over both boys, absolutely paranoid that one of them was about to get hurt at every turn. Hopefully we’ve had quite enough of that for one holiday.
Chris, Dan, Karl and Isaac
Omg …. What a bunch of nerves you both must be. Glad Karl is on the mend. Good call on the surgery. Hopefully he’s not too sore. Hugs to everyone.