Despite a way too early start, the day has gone great so far! I was up at 4:30 – getting ready and packing up. I work Ben up at 5:15 to have some juice and get him in the shower. We bathed him last night in chlorhexidine and washed his hair with it, but I thought a quick one before we left would ensure he was pretty sterile before his surgery. I suspect they will also put chlorhexidine directly on his head during the procedure.

Once we got to the hospital, we went through two admitting procedures. While at the second one, we ran into our doctor, who always has time for Ben. He checked his neck mobility while we were standing there and questioned about Ben’s overall well-being: school, soccer, health. It’s those little kindnesses that can reassure a mom’s heart.

We went through our check-in and met our MCH team who were quite lovely. I recognized the recovery room nurse from our pre-op on Friday, so it was nice to have a chance to touch base with her about Ben’s hearing. She is going to do everything she can to keep Ben away from the other patients as there are a lot of ENT cases today, and we want to try to prevent Ben from getting sick – not a fun thing when you’re in a halo! She was pretty amazing!

We also met with our anesthesiologist and were excited to find that it was our old friend from three years ago. He remembered us, and we had some fun conversations. Ben was comfortable and played some games with the team. We took Ben in the O.R. and as per his request, he had cherry smell in his mask and Angry Birds (tv show – not the movie) playing on the tv. Dr. Pablo rubbed his head and sang him a Spanish lullaby and off he went to sleep.

I don’t anticipate any problems at this point.

Well…before I finished writing that, I got word that we would be transferring to Shriners today…so we will head over there soon!