over

Phew, that week is finished. As I had said previously, the surgery was rescheduled for Tuesday morning. In a way this worked out because Brett already had 2 days off (monday and tuesday), so we just had to find someone to mind Ruby, because Declan was in school of course. We arranged for Ruby to go to Nanna's and I would drop Declan off early at Alicia's and he could walk to school with her kids. Then on Tuesday morning the hospital rang me at 7.30 and said they had had a cancellation and could we bring Simon in ASAP? Luckily we were already almost right to go so we got to the hospital at about 8.15 am and pretty much went straight into the prep area. Simon was playing it cool, but I could see he was nervous. His biggest fear was "the mask'- you know that black rubber mask thing that they put on you to put you to sleep? I guess he remembered it from when he had his hernia operation when he was 4. I was able to go into the OR with him, so after Brett and I had convinced Simon to get changed into the gown and bootees and hat (some tears about this), they wheeled him down the hall with me following. In the OR the nurses got him to scooch across to the table and the anaesthetist came in, who was a kindly, fatherly guy. He started explaining things to Simon, who was by now looking very anxious. He already had a heart rate monitor on him and you could hear the beeps speeding up on the machine. Then "The Mask" was produced and Simon lost it, and started crying. I was standing by the table, trying to reassure him and comfort him, but he became really hysterical and it took me and a nurse to hold him down while he went to sleep. It only took a minute, but it was just awful, I felt so bad and upset for him. The anaesthetist apologised, and I understand of course that it was necessary to just do it as fast as possible. That said though, I think with Simon it would have been easier to give him the anaesthetic intraveneously, they could easily put an EMLA patch on him first to numb his skin. I think if we have to go through anything like this again I will request that.

Anyway, I went back to the waiting room and I was literally shaking and wanting to cry. The doctor tried to tell me that Simon wouldn't remember anything about it, and I was like "Don't bet on it." And sure enough that night when it was all over and Simon was getting ready to go to sleep he said "Mummy, I just don't understand why you held my hands down like that. Why did you do it?" Oh god, just stab me through the heart.

The end result is that the polyp that was removed was bloody MASSIVE, it was 6 cm long. (And your sinus is 7 cm long). Dr McKay came in and showed me the photos he had taken during the procedure, he said it was the biggest polyp he has ever seen in a child (or possibly anyone). We go back on Wednesday to find out the results of the pathology. The sweat test came back negative, but Dr McKay is still considering doing a further gene test for CF. I asked him how common it is for a child to get to 8 before developing CF (and passing the heel prick test and the sweat test) and he said that it can happen, and a polyp is often the first sign. However because Simon's was a unilateral polyp, and most CF polyps are bilateral, it is unlikely. Well, i'm not losing sleep over it. I told the doctor I would prefer to just monitor him rather than put him through any more tests, so I'll discuss it with him on Wednesday.

As for Simon, he came through the surgery really, really well. There was no need to pack his nose, thank goodness, and he has only had a bit of bleeding since. Within a couple of hours of coming out of recovery he was sitting up and eating everything in sight. We spent one night in hospital and came home the next day. He has antibiotics and a saline nasal wash to do 4 times a day, and he can't go back to school until the end of next week. But apart from that he is doing great. The second day after surgery he kept asking me, "What's that smell?" I guess after having a totally blocked nose for 8 years, the world would seem pretty smelly.