Lauren’s Eye Surgery

Lauren had minor eye surgery today. She was a total trooper. For a child who has an incredible appetite, she didn’t complain about not being able to eat or drink anything until 1:00 pm. We arrived at the hospital at 9:00am and Lauren was scheduled for surgery at 10:25am. We waited in our pre-op room, which had a toy box and a Little Tykes basketball net. It was awesome, Lauren loved playing with all the toys, especially playing basketball. Craig and I played too. Eventually, one of the nurses came in to say they were running behind schedule, although we didn’t mind because we were having too much fun playing basketball. I think the nurses could tell we were having fun from all the noise and laughter coming from our room.

Fergus wanted to wish his little sister well during surgery. Here he is giving her a pep talk before we headed to the hospital.

Lauren’s God-sister, Maddy and her sweet family gave Lauren a lovey to take to the hospital. Lauren was super excited to open her surprise gift. To say she absolutely loved it would be an understatement. She was utterly thrilled. It was the perfect gift. Thank you so much Ann, Rob, Maddy and Grace Ann! It was so thoughtful of you to think of Lauren, it made me tear up when she opened it!!!

It’s a Pug in a Purse!!! It just doesn’t get much better than that!

Lauren decided to wear her tiara to the hospital. It was a Christmas gift from my dear friend, Kim, and it has hardly left her head since she opened her gift. She LOVES it! Everyone at the hospital thought she looked adorable in her princess crown. Thanks Kim, Jon, Nolan and Oliver!

Hanging out with Mommy and Daddy in the Pre-Op room.

Getting ready for her surgery, all suited up in her awesome, purple hospital gown. There is also an “X” on her forehead to signify which eye will needs the operation.

There are six muscles that control the direction of your eye. One of Lauren’s muscles wasn’t working as it should so her eye doctor decided he would detach it, and the reattach the muscle in a different spot.

Princess patient

“X” marks the spot… or rather, the eye…

Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeese!

Snuggling and giggling with Daddy.

You can tell in the picture below how her left eye isn’t looking completely to the right, it is looking upward. It looks much better than it did when I first started noticing it. 

Lauren picked out a special toy from the toy shelf. There were a lot of fun things to choose from.

She finally choose a bag of dinosaurs. (This is a big change from the lip gloss she chose during her ear tube surgery last spring.)

After playing with her new dinosaurs for a little while, Lauren decided to shoot some hoops!

Mommy and Daddy shot some hoops too. We laughed. LOUDLY!

There were lots of toys to play with in our room. Lauren didn’t get bored for one second.

Lauren went out to the nurse’s lobby and found a Connect Four Game. It only had three pieces… two red and one black. Craig and I laughed really hard at this since technically, you couldn’t even connect four of either color, or four total for that matter. Bahahahahaha!

Moving on to Princess Monopoly… Can you tell we had to wait a while? Lauren didn’t mind one bit. Neither did Craig and I. We were having too much fun.

Finally, it was Lauren’s turn, so I put my cap and gown on and took her back to the O.R.

This was Lauren’s third surgery. She has had two prior surgeries, both for ear tubes. I have taken her back to stay with her while each time while they put her to sleep and this is the first time I didn’t cry!

It was a quick procedure. Only about 15 minutes. She was delivered to us in the Post-Op room and was a little upset at first but quickly went back to sleep for an hour. Poor little thing.

Waking up for the second time. She was in a much better mood and did great! Such a trooper!

Yahoo! A popsicle! Things are looking up!

Snuggling with her new Pug, post popsicle.

Lauren, sporting her new Jackie O. sunglasses and ready to go home!

Her nurse asked if she was always so sweet and so calm. That’s our Lauren!

(Good luck to my sister, Auntie J. who will also be undergoing eye surgery tomorrow. xo)