Tag: surgery

Supporting the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals With General Mills and Costco

This post is sponsored by General Mills but, as always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

It’s now been almost a full month since my daughter, S, had her surgery to repair an epigastric hernia.

The Cohen’s Children’s Medical Center staff thought of everything. The nurses reminded us not to eat or drink in the pre-op waiting room because the patients there aren’t allowed to either. The child life specialist made sure that S had Play-Doh, stuffed animals, cars and as many other toys as they could provide in order to make sure S stayed in a good mood. The child life team sat with her while the doctor and anesthesiologist spoke with us and walked us through the entire procedure. The anesthesiologist offered to place a flavored scent into the anesthesia to make it more tolerable for S to breathe in (she chose strawberry). S was also given the option to look at pictures of the operating room before going in to help the environment feel more familiar once she got inside. She was pushed into the OR in style, riding in a Step2 play push-car and beeping the horn the entire way. My wife also told me that she was able to hold S on her lap while they administered the anesthesia, which I thought was unbelievable. Continue reading “Supporting the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals With General Mills and Costco”

What If, Revisited

I sat in the large ballroom of the Westin Riverwalk Hotel, the site of this year’s Dad 2.0 Summit, simultaneously listening to the opening keynote address from fitness personality Shaun T and tweeting what I thought sounded like poignant quotes. He talked about being caught by surprise when his children were born – the surrogate carrying his twins went into labor early – and how he and his partner reacted when they received the news. He spoke about being privileged enough to be home with his brand new babies during their first few months of life and how he dealt with the feelings of anxiety and self-doubt that often threatened to overwhelm him. He brought up the emotions he experienced as his children grew, the advice he had been given and the lessons he had learned.

I was mid-tweet when my phone began buzzing furiously. The Twitter app disappeared and the screen went black as the call came in, leaving only the red and green circles at the bottom and my wife’s name at the top. I swiped to answer the call and ducked out of the ballroom as quickly as I could.

She was calling from the hospital. Continue reading “What If, Revisited”

What If…?

E goes to bed fairly consistently at some point between 6:30 and 7:30 each night. He plays hard at school and barely slows down once he gets home, so he’s usually pretty tired by the time he finishes dinner. T bathes him and S, reads E a story, sings to him and then he falls asleep (or, if I’m home, I take care of the bedtime routine).

S is slightly less reliable in that respect. It depends on the day she has had; if she hasn’t had an afternoon nap and it’s been fairly busy (which it often is), she’ll nurse and fall asleep right after E. If she has napped in the afternoon, or if the day has been quieter, she may decide she wants to stay up and play longer. I can’t really blame her; that’s her only real chance to play with both of her parents without her big brother getting in the way.  Continue reading “What If…?”

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