A day at Children's.

Every year and a half we have to schedule a day surgery at Children's hospital for our 13 year old son to get routine dental work. Since he has Down syndrome and Autism, the dentists chair for him is worse than pulling teeth. He won't even go into the office, let alone let anyone pry open his mouth, so his dental work must be done under anesthesia.
Getting him into the hospital is usually not too hard, because it's not a threatening place, until the guys in the green outfits come through the double doors. It would be too traumatic for 6 men to wrestle him onto the gurney and strap him down, so the 'sleep' doc gives him an oral sedative first (this time it was a shot) and then we heft him up on the gurney and wheel him into the workshop.
Yesterday was his day, and everything went fairly smooth until his recovery. It took most of the day for his dizziness to wear off, and when ever he tried to walk he would hit the floor and then vomit. It took a few wrestling matches with him to convince him that he had to wait it out.
Children's is an amazing place. We saw a few panic stricken parents fretting over their kids routine day surgeries, as well as some battle hardened parents escorting their kids with no hair, in wheelchairs and casts. We saw a tiny baby who had lots of complications at birth, who was making allot of progress, though still very jaundiced. We saw a CP kid in a super deluxe wheel chair being pushed around by his parents who looked strikingly like us. Sometimes in cases like that our eyes meet and we immediately see kindred spirits, though I know they have a lot harder of a time than we do. The place bustles all day long, tired nurses run back and forth, staff, security/concierge, doctors and coffee shop workers run non-stop through the day.
When we finally got Mitchell in the car it was 4 p.m. and when we got outside (2nd try) my wife and I both felt detached from reality. The inside of that hospital is it's own universe, it's own culture and language. It has a feel all to it's own. We were so focused on one thing we forgot there was a world outside the hospital doors. The frustration of having to go through such an ordeal just for dental work, the sadness of seeing hurt kids and also the joy of seeing the recovering ones, along with the satisfaction of getting out in good shape, wear at your conscience and burn you out.
The final hours of the day even everything out. Mitch is home and happily playing his videos over and over, and we're still feeling like the most blessed parents on the planet, warts and all.
M