The Little Patient

Ben's surgery went well today--we are so thankful! I think the anticipation was much worse than the actual procedure but if baby Ben could talk, he'd probably disagree. We arrived at the hospital at 5:59am, and having followed the rules, had not fed him since 2:00am (four hours prior to arrival). The check-in process was surprisingly efficient and they had us in a pre-op room before we knew it. Then Dr. Wisoff's resident came in and said they'd had an emergency case come in late last night and that there would be a couple-hour delay. Fearing meltdown, we braced ourselves for what we thought would be an unbearable two hours. However, Ben just cooed and laughed and wiggled until about 9:30am when they finally took him to the OR! (My personal opinion is that he relished in the rare two-on-one attention from Mom and Dad, and enjoyed a respite from Big Brother Abuse... despite the fast, it was probably the most enjoyable few hours he's had in his short life.)

The procedure* was short and they found that it was not actually a dermoid as they'd expected. Rather, Dr. Wisoff thinks it was just a sort of bone spur, which is rare and inexplicable as well. They removed it and sent it to pathology, but he doesn't expect it is anything that will recur or cause any trouble for Ben.

When Ben woke up in the recovery room, he was hungry and tired, but came out of the anesthesia pretty easily and we were home at about 2:30pm. His head is understandably sore, and I expect we'll be up much of the night, but Tylenol seems to be doing the trick (knock on wood). All in all, we're very grateful and were reminded of what a strong, brave, and patient little guy we've been blessed with. Here are a few pictures of him pre- and post-surgery.
*For those who don't know about this, here's the scoop: At Ben's 2-month well visit, I asked the pediatrician about the lump on the back of his head. Expecting her to say that it was just a gland, I was surprised to hear, "Hmmm... interesting. I think you should have the neurosurgeon check it out, although it's probably nothing." (!!!) So we met Dr. Wisoff, the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at NYU. He nonchalantly told me it was a dermoid cyst and that we should have it removed so that it doesn't grow and bore into the skull. We got a second opinion from our friend's friend at Duke (thanks so much, Shahid), who agreed that we should move ahead with the 15-minute excision procedure. So that's how we found ourselves at NYU Langone Center today for the surgery.