WARNING: This is a really long blog post and there are a few bloody pictures.
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At the at of September, Eli somehow cut his forehead.
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At the at of September, Eli somehow cut his forehead.
It wasn't anything serious and I don't even remember how it happened.
It was no big deal.
At that time, Eli was giving up his nap but I was still putting him down for "quiet time."
Well, during quiet time he picked his scab.
The first time he did it the was blood all over his bedding.
I took a picture of his head (a lot of the blood had already dried on).
After I showed Eli the picture of his head, he made a sad face.
I had to document that face. It's just too cute even if it is sad.
After that we put a new bandaid on his cut. Again he pulled off his bandaid and picked his scab.
And from there a growth starting forming.
It happened so slowly that it took us a while to notice.
It happened so slowly that it took us a while to notice.
Here he is a few weeks later at his 3 year check up.
Notice that his forehead doesn't look bad yet.
Well fast forward a few months and he's got a weird, nasty growth on his forehead!
I took Eli to our pediatrician. Our pediatrician wasn't quite sure what the growth was.
And since it was on Eli's face,
he recommended that we went to a plastic surgeon and not a dermatologist.
A few days before Christmas we went up to Primary Children's Hospital.
The views from up on the hill in Salt Lake are AMAZING!
Eli had a blast in the waiting room.
The surgeon took one look at Eli and instantly knew what the growth was.
He said it was a pyogenic granuloma.
Apparently went Eli kept picking his scab he caused trauma to his wound.
His body responded by growing a bunch of blood cells.
Dr. Schmelzer told us that the blood cells would never stop growing.
(It was already growing bigger and bigger.)
Also the growth would bleed really easily.
(We already noticed that. If Eli didn't have a bandaid on when I'd pull off his shirts,
his shirt would rub against the growth and it would start bleeding. And it would bleed a lot.)
So Eli needed to get the granuloma removed.
And because of his age, that meant surgery.
(If he was older they would just remove it in office.)
...
So I scheduled Eli's surgery for Martin Luther King Day.
Sean had the day off already and I didn't have to worry about getting the girls to and from school.
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A few days before surgery, we found out that Eli's surgery time wasn't until 1 pm.
I was so upset!
When Avery had her surgery, I was told that the younger the child is the earlier their surgery is.
Well Avery was four when she had surgery and I believe her O.R. time was 11 am.
I thought Eli's would have been around 10 am.
I couldn't believe that they were making him wait that long.
...
The night before surgery, I was worried.
We kept Eli up when the girls went to bed.
Sean went to Wendy's and got Eli some food.
He loved it!
We were trying hard to fill his tummy up.
(Why didn't I take pictures with my real camera? My cell just doesn't do a good job.)
Then we gave him a bath.
We watched Cars 2 with him.
And then we fed him after the movie.
(He could eat and drink anything up until midnight.)
The day of surgery Eli could have "clear liquids" until 10 am.
So for breakfast we gave him Spirt and apple juice popsicles.
He was pretty excited.
After breakfast, we gave Eli his "surgery present."
It was a Melissa and Doug tractor and trailer.
He was really excited. We were hoping that it would distract him from his hunger.
Then Sean gave him a priesthood blessing.
I was so proud of Eli.
He went and sat on the chair and folded his arms and bowed his head all on his own.
And he was quiet and sat still throughout the entire blessing.
...
After that took the girls to the Hansen's house.
While I was dropping them off, Eli found a graham cracker in his car seat.
Sean was sitting in the drivers seat and he quite smacked that out of Eli's hand.
Eli started bawling and saying, "I hungry! I hungry!"
And he cried and begged for food the whole way we were driving out of the valley.
(A friend of mine told me that her nephew found a Cheerio in his car seat on the way to Primary's
for surgery and his parents told the staff and they canceled his surgery!)
We're not sure if Eli ate any or not but we didn't say anything!
...
Primary's is STRICT.
I was told when I scheduled Eli's surgery that if we brought him in for surgery and he was sick,
even if it was just a little cough or congestion, that they'd cancel his surgery.
And they'd black list him and he wouldn't be allowed to have surgery for 8 weeks.
So the weeks before Eli's surgery, we tried to stay home as much as possible,
we were trying to avoid any and all sickness.
...
Here's a few pictures of Eli on the drive to the hospital.
I was hoping that he'd sleep. But he didn't. He loves being on the highway seeing all the vehicles.
Once we got into Salt Lake, I whispered to Sean that I hoped
that we wouldn't go past any restaurants, since Eli was so hungry.
Immediately after that we drove past a building with a 20 foot hamburger painted on the side!
...
When we got to the hospital, there wasn't a single other child in the pre op waiting room.
It was a federal holiday but the hospital was still open, there were just less staff.
So that must have been the reason that Eli had such a late O.R. time.
Well Avery was four when she had surgery and I believe her O.R. time was 11 am.
I thought Eli's would have been around 10 am.
I couldn't believe that they were making him wait that long.
...
The night before surgery, I was worried.
We kept Eli up when the girls went to bed.
Sean went to Wendy's and got Eli some food.
He loved it!
We were trying hard to fill his tummy up.
(Why didn't I take pictures with my real camera? My cell just doesn't do a good job.)
Then we gave him a bath.
We watched Cars 2 with him.
And then we fed him after the movie.
(He could eat and drink anything up until midnight.)
The day of surgery Eli could have "clear liquids" until 10 am.
So for breakfast we gave him Spirt and apple juice popsicles.
He was pretty excited.
After breakfast, we gave Eli his "surgery present."
It was a Melissa and Doug tractor and trailer.
He was really excited. We were hoping that it would distract him from his hunger.
Then Sean gave him a priesthood blessing.
I was so proud of Eli.
He went and sat on the chair and folded his arms and bowed his head all on his own.
And he was quiet and sat still throughout the entire blessing.
...
After that took the girls to the Hansen's house.
While I was dropping them off, Eli found a graham cracker in his car seat.
Sean was sitting in the drivers seat and he quite smacked that out of Eli's hand.
Eli started bawling and saying, "I hungry! I hungry!"
And he cried and begged for food the whole way we were driving out of the valley.
(A friend of mine told me that her nephew found a Cheerio in his car seat on the way to Primary's
for surgery and his parents told the staff and they canceled his surgery!)
We're not sure if Eli ate any or not but we didn't say anything!
...
Primary's is STRICT.
I was told when I scheduled Eli's surgery that if we brought him in for surgery and he was sick,
even if it was just a little cough or congestion, that they'd cancel his surgery.
And they'd black list him and he wouldn't be allowed to have surgery for 8 weeks.
So the weeks before Eli's surgery, we tried to stay home as much as possible,
we were trying to avoid any and all sickness.
...
Here's a few pictures of Eli on the drive to the hospital.
I was hoping that he'd sleep. But he didn't. He loves being on the highway seeing all the vehicles.
Once we got into Salt Lake, I whispered to Sean that I hoped
that we wouldn't go past any restaurants, since Eli was so hungry.
Immediately after that we drove past a building with a 20 foot hamburger painted on the side!
...
When we got to the hospital, there wasn't a single other child in the pre op waiting room.
It was a federal holiday but the hospital was still open, there were just less staff.
So that must have been the reason that Eli had such a late O.R. time.
The waiting rooms are all filled with toys.
Eli was so excited! When he saw the wall filled with cozy coupes he was ecstatic!
He picked a police car and he rode in that thing for hours.
We were called back pretty quickly.
Eli HATED getting his blood pressure checked.
Every time the cuff would squeeze his arm, he'd yell, "It hurt me! It hurt me!"
After a quick exam, it was time to wipe Eli all over his body with special cleaning wipes
(but not his head, where he was actually have the surgery).
And then we put him in his "hospital jammies."
The nurse originally grabbed a pair of purple girl ones for Eli.
As soon as she left, I grabbed him a blue pair instead.
As we were doing all of this, I kept thinking of Avery's surgery.
So many memories kept flooding my mind.
And I kept thinking that I never want to do this again.
As soon as Eli was dressed and ready for surgery, he quickly hoped into his police car again.
A nurse left our room door open and he drove out of the room and up and down the halls.
But no one cared. He loved cruising all over the place.
Soon after that we were taken to the surgical waiting room.
We got there over an hour before Eli's scheduled time.
We were told that Eli would got back to surgery early.
I was so excited.
But that didn't happen. He went back 10 minutes after his scheduled time.
Eli loved his beach scene painted on the wall. He kept saying that it was Bear Lake.
While we were in the surgical waiting room we saw two other patients come in.
They were both a lot older than Eli. My guess was between 10 - 13 years old.
That made me mad. I felt like Eli shouldn't have had to wait as long as them.
Eli did so much better than I expected though.
He started getting bored and asking to go home a little bit before he went back to surgery.
He kept trying to escape and let the waiting room.
Finally, it was time for surgery!
Our surgeon came out to talk with us real quick.
He told us that the procedure was going to be so quick that they
weren't going to use general anesthesia, instead they just use laughing gas.
I was happy about that.
They let us walk with Eli right to the O.R. doors.
(I had thought that with Avery but after walking with Eli, I realized that we didn't.)
Next, Sean and I went to the waiting room. I HATE that place!
When we walked in there was women bawling on a man's shoulder.
The whole room is filled with worried and nervous faces.
I knew that my son would be okay but being in that room just gets me all worked up!
Sean and felt like frauds being there.
Here are parents with children who are probably having "real" surgeries and
our son is having a weird mole thing removed.
...
A nursed called for the parents of Avery and Sean and I both almost stood up.
It was total deja vu.
...
Our surgeon came back really quickly.
(Thank goodness it was a quickly procedure, I couldn't imagine waiting for hours.)
He told us that the surgery went great.
But that the growth was bigger than he was expecting. There were a lot of roots under the skin.
I don't remember him saying it, but Sean said that Dr. Schmelzer said it went down to the skull.
So now I'm glad that we did surgery and didn't get it removed in office.
...
A little while later we were taken back to Eli.
When we found him, he looked so sad and scared.
Apparently he had woken up in the O.R. (after surgery) and started thrashing around in the bed
and got all tangled up in the cords and tubes.
Even though he just had laughing gas, he had a really hard time waking up.
That was the first time he cried. I was trying hard to fight back the tears myself.
Again, I couldn't help thinking about Avery. It was hard to watch her wake up too.
Soon Eli was taken to the second recovery room.
The nurse turned on the TV but no shows were on that he knew.
He just stared at the TV like a zoombie.
...
The nurse brought him a root beer slushy but he wouldn't eat it.
He kept saying his IV hurt and he wanted to know when "his" police car was.
The nurse also brought him a Lightning McQueen blanket.
He didn't really seem to notice or care at the time but now he likes it.
He was just really grumpy. I don't blame him though.
He had chosen cotton candy flavored "air" (laughing gas) for his surgery.
He didn't really understand the whole air part.
Here he is trying to find the cotton candy in the mask
because that's where they told him the smell would be.
He kept asking for cotton candy.
Also he kept asking for popcorn. Which was random.
because that's where they told him the smell would be.
He kept asking for cotton candy.
Also he kept asking for popcorn. Which was random.
Here he is getting his IV removed.
And then we had to take of these sticky pad things (I'm not sure what they're called).
But that was awful. He screamed!
Eli had stitches under his skin and glue on it.
Starting a few says after surgery, we were instructed to rub Vaseline or something like that.
We were supposed to do that three times a day for about three weeks.
...
This week was Eli's surgical follow up.
The day before his follow up, Eli and Ruby bumped heads and he stated bleeding under his glue.
This kid! He seriously hits his head at least once a day!
At his check up, the surgeon told me that his glue should be off by now.
So when we got home from the appointment, I gave him a bath and took his glue off.
That was not easy! I was nervous and he was screaming.
And here's what his head looks like now.
The day he got the all clear from his surgeon, he hurt his toe really bad a the church
while I was setting up for New Beginnings.
At first I wasn't sure if was going to need stitches or not.
We decided he didn't need stitches.
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