Continuing My Hospital Tour of Rhode Island: a PTSD Story

It's not me this time! It's Sigrid. She's fine, everything's fine, but she had to have a frenulectomy (very minor surgery to correct tongue-tiedness) and is being monitored for 24 hours. At the hospital. And so I'm here with her. At the hospital. It's Hasbro Children's Hospital this time, so at least I get to check another facility off my life list. Very exciting.

So Sigrid's doing well, but I'm a slight mess. When we took her in to the otolaryngologist (nice, huh?) last week, we thought the doctor would just snip her frenulum in the office, since no one [on the internet, natch] seemed to think the procedure was a big deal. Heck, when the pediatrician at Kent noticed Sigrid was tongue-tied, she pretty much offered to get a pair of scissors and take care of it right then with no preparation whatsoever. That seemed a little... barbaric, so we held out to talk to our own pediatrician. He referred us to the otolaryngologist, where, as I said, I thought we'd get everything taken care of.

The doctor looked at Sigrid, agreed we should have the frenulectomy done, and then said, "Here's the bad news. We don't do that procedure here." After two hours of waiting, that's a bummer, but um... OK.

She went on, "You'll have to take her over to Hasbro so she can get some anaesthesia."

At this point, I'd been out of the hospital for less than 48 hours. Hasbro. That's a.... hospital.

"And then she'll need to stay under observation for 24 hours."

Which means I will need to stay with her. In. The. Hospital.

I could see Chris giving me little glances. I may or may not have started twitching.

The night I'd gotten home from Women and Infants', I watched Heroes on TV, and one of the characters ended up in the emergency room. They showed her in the bed, hooked up to the IV, with the little table next to her, and that pink ice water pitcher was on the table, and I couldn't deal with it. I could not look at the pink pitcher. And now, here I am, back in a hospital, and there's that pink pitcher again. I have a real problem with that pitcher.

I cried for a little while this morning when they brought us into the room and put her in the metal crib and showed me to my uncomfortable chair which may or may not turn into a bed. I really would like to go home. I at least have enough perspective to see that this is for Sigrid's good, not mine, and so I need to suck it up, but I'm really looking forward to this night being over. Anyway, at least I'm not hooked up to anything, or wearing a johnny, and I can get up and find food whenever I want, and I brought some knitting, so I can make useless baby socks all day long (the plan is: make a sock, put it on Sigrid, she will lose it, then I will make another one).

After this, I am done with hospitals. Let's hope life cooperates.