Preparations

A couple weeks ago, my friend Cori sent KayTar a little package for her upcoming hospital trip. In it, was a Groovy Girl with blond curly hair and a spare outfit (and surf board!). KayTar was thrilled with the doll, whom she promptly named "Luke", and agreed when I told her we couldn't open the spare clothes until we were at the hospital. This was how I told her "Surprise! You're going back to the hospital!" It turned out to be a good way to break the less than stellar news, because after school that day (and subsequent days) she would say, "Can we go to the hospital NOW?" I should be in PR, I think. If you can sell a hospital trip to a three year old, you can sell just about anything.

Here she is opening the gift and reading the accompanying letter (she has trouble following the lines sometimes, but did NOT want my finger pointing assistance):

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

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My mom has been making KayTar her own little stylish hospital gowns. We've picked up princess fabric and fairy fabric and all manner of fabrics that ooze the girliness my girl is so drawn to. She is quite thrilled with her new gowns and might be even more excited that they are called gowns, "Just like a princess!".



(just in case you ever need a tiny hospital gown pattern, there is a free one HERE. though, we discovered that the neck hole was a bit too big and needed adjusting and we opted to go with non-velcro sleeves.)

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KayTar has informed me on multiple occasions that she is NOT going to the Girl Hospital, but rather the Boy Hospital. This is the sort of thing that happens at the Boy Hospital:



Yes, she would like to have her surgery at Sacred Heart.

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Today I decided we might be overselling this whole hospital thing; new toys, new clothes, the cast of Scrubs...so this morning we sat down and talked about things a bit more.

We're going to the regular old hospital, with the boats out front and the stars in the elevator. She said, "Oh! I love that hospital! I love the boats and the stars, and every-fing."

She's going to get another Straw in her hand (IV). She looked a little less than thrilled, but she said, "Can the bandage be PINK? I wike pink."

The doctors are going to do something to her throat while she is sleeping to keep the frogs out, a frog trap if you will. It will make her throat hurt, but hopefully it will be the last sore throat for a long time. When she gets throat infections, she always says, "I have a frog in my throat." so that was the only way I could think to explain it to her in an understandable way. No, there are neither frogs nor traps involved, but if frogs are painful throat infections to her, then no more tonsils should be the equivalent of no more frogs.

I pulled up photos of g-buttons on the Internet, to show her what an extra belly button looks like and how it works, kind of like the Straw in her hand, but it puts the food right in her belly. She laughed and said, "Can I say, 'yum, yum, yum'?".

Then I told her she'd be getting stitches in her leg like her brother did this summer. She isn't too keen on this part, because she says stitches are "Too spidery." But I told her we can keep them covered up mostly.

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Her surgery is a noon tomorrow. No Pediasure or food after midnight tonight, no clear fluids after 8:30 tomorrow morning. We have to be at the hospital at 10am.

Here we go!

Belly.