Cooper's Hernia Surgery

Well-I had this post completely written (which took me a good 45 minutes) and then the internet froze and somehow I lost it.  :(  So here we go again, round two.  Warning - it's a long post with lots of detail that I don't want to forget years (or days :)) from now.

Rewind to the beginning of August.  When we were at the fair in Washington, Cooper was getting dressed in our room and we noticed just above the left side of his scrotum was really swollen.  I took him to our pediatrician when we got home and the first diagnosis was a swollen bug bite.  When it didn't go away for a week, I took him back in.  He didn't complain about it once, said it never bothered him.  This time she was quick to diagnosis as an inguinal hernia.  What the what??  I thought hernias were for adults!  Nope-here's your anatomy lesson for the day.  When baby boys are growing in their mommas' bellies-their testicles are in their stomachs.  There is a tube (for lack of a better word) that the testicles go thru to the scrotum.  That tubing is supposed to close up on its own - in some cases it does not and that is where the hernia happens.  The swollen part above his scrotum was part of his intestine that slid down the tubing.  It's a quick and easy fix but requires surgery, boo!  Our pediatrician, whom we love!, recommended a surgeon but also told me to call my bff Stacey for a recommendation since she is a nurse practitioner with the cardiac surgeons at Children's Mercy.  As we headed home from Doctor, I was calling Stacey to hear about surgeons and my other bff was at my house painting my dining room table!  How lucky am I to have these girls as friends?!  Stacey recommend the same surgeon and even made herself available to come over to general surgery and oversee Coop!
We met with the surgeon, who was great and his nurse practitioner was incredible!!  We knew we were in good hands.  Fast forward to day of surgery.  We didn't tell Cooper about the surgery - Adam and I talked a lot about it and in the end we thought it was best if he didn't have to worry about it.  The day before I did mention to him that we were going back to the doctor to get his penis fixed.  He was like, whatever.
A big thank you to my mom for taking the girls for the day - it was a much smoother process without them tagging along.  We got to Children's Mercy at 10:15 and Coop was a bit hungry at this point and who could blame him!?  The last time he had eaten was about 7:30 the night before.  We got vitals checked, visited with Stace, talked with anesthesia and the surgeon - everything was good…until it was time to change into the gown.  His little wheels had been turning and he was officially scared.  He was crying (or screaming) and throwing a big fit.  Luckily, Stace peeked her head in and said not to worry about the gown.  About that time they brought in some relaxing medicine - within 10 minutes it had kicked in.  He wasn't loopy, it just took the edge off and he was way more chill (where's my dose? :)).  We hung out in the room - Coop played with the Legos that Stacey had brought him.  Shortly after, it was time to head to surgery.  I carried him down hall (he wasn't allowed to walk since he had the relaxing medicine) and then handed him over to Stacey to take to surgery.  There were no tears from anyone-I knew he was in the best hands possible with her!  The procedure itself was just 40 minutes or so but took him a while to wake up from anesthesia.  Stace kept us updated on him and surgeon came to talk to us after he was done.  He said it all went as planned and he would be back to himself in 24-48 hours.  We met back up with Coop when he was awake, definitely still groggy but awake.  He just wanted to go home and so did we :).  We were back home by 2:30, a quick out patient surgery.
He spent the rest of the day/night relaxing and had a few visitors.

- I have a few more pictures that I need to add when we get back home -

 All smiles taking selfies in the waiting room.

 Our nurse angel, Stacey.  I should have gotten a pic before surgery, he was a bit groggy here.  Seriously, she made this process so easy.  I really wasn't nervous and it was because I knew she was there taking care of my boy.

 He's always been a cuddler.

We carried Laney's mattress into our room for a movie night and sleepover.  We watched Frozen and ate lots of treats that awesome people delivered to him as a get well wish.

As we were going to sleep, we asked him some questions about his day and the surgery part we weren't there for.  I wrote some of our conversation in the notes section of my phone as he was talking because I knew I would forget.  His first quote after seeing the bandaids on his belly, "Doctors are so mean.  Why did they have to make a cut in my belly?"  Obviously we reaffirmed that doctors are awesome and they helped him, not hurt him!  He said they forced him to go to sleep and he wasn't happy about it.  We asked how they got him to sleep.  He said they told him to breathe in a tube and blow out the air because baby animals crawl in there and get it stinky….what??  I asked him what the room looked like when Stacey took him back and showed him around.  He said, it had a lot of stuff to make you feel better but he still didn't like it. He also told me that Gia and Emery (Stacey's girls) were having a birthday party soon and we were invited :).

The next day, Saturday, he walked down the stairs and said, "You said I was going to feel better today.  I don't."  I gave him some Motrin and soon he was feeling alright again.  By that night he was playing in the bounce house at Henley's birthday party!  Come Sunday morning, all was good again!  This whole process made us so thankful for healthy kids.  This was a simple surgery and could have been so many other and much more complicated things.