Total meltdown commencing in 5...4...3...2...1

“There's no bitch on earth like a mother frightened for her kids.”
― Stephen King




Finally after what seemed like hours of waiting in those little blue plastic chairs and watching cartoons on the Disney channel in the kids play room, the nurse called my name from the doorway. 

"You can go back and see your daughter now.  She's awake, but we just got her into the recovery room.  Normally I wait to bring families back until the kids have been there a little while, but since you work here I made an exception."

I thanked her profusely for letting me go back early, but then was wishing she had waited a little bit longer as I rounded the corner and could hear Oli screaming at the top of her lungs from the end of the room.  

I quickened my pace to get to her bedside and then looked at the recovery room nurse as she straightened out cords and tried to get her connected to the monitors.

"Aren't you going to give her some pain medication?"  I ask the obvious question when ones child has had surgery and then is screaming like they are still slicing off some major body part.

"Yes I'll get her something in a minute."

In a minute?  Can't you hear her pain?  This purple color is not the normal hue of my daughter's face. 

I know what it's like to be the nurse and have anxious parents breathing down my neck, but come on lady.  I understand that you are busy and it is obviously important that you straighten out these cords (for some reason unknown to me), but give her something.  I think she might be dying.

She finally untangles the last knot in the stream of medical cords and saunters off to get Oli pain medication.

By the time she came back I don't think I had ever seen Oli quite the color that her face was now.  I had no idea, until that moment, that human skin could turn that color.  Her face had a kind of red, purplish tint that only the truly pissed off baby can become.

Now I am quite familiar with it.  Now I know that when Oli turns that color I better get the hell out of her way in about 10 seconds because she may spontaneously combust.  Or try to bite, scratch or beat me to death.  Good thing my peanut is only 40lbs soaking wet and has yet to actually hurt me. ( She is usually very sweet. I promise... Except when she's not. )

The nurse gave her some medicine and Oli eventually quieted down and went to sleep.

"This is normal. Sometimes children have that kind of reaction to the anesthesia.  She should be better after a little while."  The obsessive compulsive nurse tells me.

"Okay."  I am thinking yes, I realize that, but it does not give me any comfort because I am watching my baby have a total and complete meltdown and therefore am well on my way to total meltdown phase myself.  Watching her scream louder than I have ever heard her scream does not in any way feel "normal" to me.

However, thank you for trying to reassure me.

I don't feel any better.