K's Surgery

It had been a mad month for us... (well, which month hasn't been? We have nothing but chaos in our household since they were born)

Just before K turned 1 year old, my husband found one of his testics to be unusually bigger. Thank god my husband helps out with the children, if not, I would never have noticed. The PD diagnosed it as Hydrocele. It's basically water in the testics. We were worried sick then and was referred to a surgeon for a possible surgery. The surgeon suggested putting it off as most kids will just outgrow this. These are times when good faith didn't work. I was so confident that K will outgrow this and will not require the surgery. I couldn't accept it very well when we had to make an appointment for the surgery to drain the fluid and to close up the tube that allows water in.

I tried my best to prepare K for the surgery. Describing to him how an operating theatre would look like and how the medical officers would be dressed there. We were told he might need to use a mask and I also explained to him that he might need to use a mask. It seem to work very well. Though I know he wasn't comfortable at the OT, he was calm and that surprised all the nurses and doctors. We had 2 choiced of anesthesia. By injection or using the mask. By injection is quick and fuss free but most kids are very fearful of injections and if they were not successful, it gets a lot more tricky to get them to use the mask. K never cried during their vaccinations so I opt for the jap. But they couldn't find the vein and poked him many times until they gave up. K was very brave, he didn't even bat an eyelid when the needle went in. The Anesthetist was really surprised that K didn't cry. We had to resort to using the mask and K was quite nervous when the Anesthetist put the mask to his face and all the nurses tried to pin him down when he turned away. I asked to hold the mask and they allowed me. It was a lot better but the nurses tried to hold his head and he was scared. I kept asking them to be gentle and there was no need to pin him down as he was actually quite calm and I can handle the struggling. I tried to distract him by talking to him, telling him that Y is waiting for him at home, his granny is waiting for him. He shouted "I want Y to wait for K! I want Ah Ma to wait for K!" before drifting off.

The surgery went smoothly and he is recovering well. But he has quite a bad temper for the past few weeks and Y had been very jealous of him, resulting in a lot of fights between them. They can't play harmoniously even for a few mins. I'm totally exhausted and is equally irritable as them, behaving like a mad mom screaming and shouting like them. The hot and humid weather in Singapore is not helping. Every day, every hour, every min is a struggle from bath to diaper change to meals. I'm praying hard that things improve around here. It's had been going from bad to worse around the time when they were turning 2 years old. Just praying hard that this is just a difficult T2 phase and will pass soon like a thunderstorm.