The Operation
1 December 2009.
Juan is exactly 10 months old today. I was stressing about: “How not to give a baby food for 10hours”, but that seem to be quite easy. I set my alarm clock for 22:00 last night, as a reminder to give Juan his last food before the operation. He drinks a bit, and then he just sleeps.
This morning I wake him at 5:30, and I’m all emotion, but he prefers to sleep. And he sleeps- during the entire drive to the hospital. He awakes at 6:30 whilst we are at the hospital reception. WOW! He’s so calm and playful, and that immediately makes it easy for all of us.
The anesthetist comes to do his check up— I’m scared Juan has started with a cold and the anesthetist says the operation can’t be done. But all clear and ready for the operation. Yeah!! Just when Juan starts to get wriggly they give him medicine to make him sleep. He falls asleep just before 8:30 and at 8:30, Hennie accompanies Juan as they push him into theater. And I cry, standing there alone in the hallway. Today Juan would be the first to receive the new Nucleus 5 Cochlear System in South Africa.
We go and have breakfast. 3 hours later we stand ready to get Juan as he comes out of theater– but no Juan— the audiologist comes out, shows us the new Nucleus 5 Cochlear System, and I just want to know where Juan is. The audiologist says: no that haven’t even started putting the Cochlear system in. And I must contain myself to not shout: But what have you been doing all this time!– I thought he is going to be out already!
Another 1.5 hours in theater and then there’s my little baby. Blue and crying none stop. Ice cold. 5 hours since I have last seen him. 4.5 hours in theater. Apparently he bled a lot, so it became a bit of a technical operation ( not as if it is not technical enough!!). But here he is, fine and crying. Bandages all around his ear. And beautiful to me. My baby.
Prof. Johannes Swart comes and checks on us and Juan. He must be the most stunning doctor I’ve ever met! So humble, so sincere, so absolutely amazing. He just lifts the standard of everything you can measure a doctor by, and we smile when we see him. He makes sure Juan is 100% fine before he goes. We take photo’s with him. For the moment, Prof. Swart is the man, and we cannot be more grateful for him. What an incredible man.
Hennie, my mother, mother in law and father in law are also present, we make turns to try and calm Juan down and warm him up, before his pain killers kicks in. He cries and cries, and falls asleep with the Nucleus 5 Cochlear system safe in his tiny head. All of us happy.
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