Surgery Day - 2 hours before Surgery

Kyle went into surgery two days ago. We got to the hospital by 6am. He was registered by 6:20a and then we went to another room to prep. Kyle had to put on his hospital gown, do a breathing treatment, and have his vitals checked. Then a nurse put numbing lotion on the top of both his hands to prep for IVs.

Then we met with the anesthetist. She asked many questions and told us how she was going to put him under anesthesia. She said due to his airway restrictions and swallowing issue she was going to use a fiber optics breathing tube down his nose to his lungs. If that didn't work she would have to do a trachea. She said due to his positioning (he had to be face down for surgery) that many issues could happen to his breathing so they had to take many measures to prevent any. (And they did. We later found out it took almost 4 hours before they even started the surgery to make sure he was positioned well. Apparently they put the halo on first with him lying on his back and they did all their positioning tests and that took almost 2 hours. Then they put him on his stomach and did it all over again taking 2 more hours).

Next the nurse gave Kyle 'happy juice' which was medicine he had to take by mouth that was to relax him. They told us it gives an amnesia effect so he won't remember much after he takes it. It knocked him out immediately. Kyle was sitting in a chair but started to slouch so I held him up.

After we were done with the anesthetist the surgery team came in to meet us which were:

His 2 neurosurgeons from Oakland
1 visiting neurosurgeon from London
1 visiting neurosurgeon from Korea
3 Practitioner Assistants (P.A.)
1 Social Worker
One nurse who monitors his nerves with needles/sensors (I don't remember his title)

Then a male nurse came in with a wheelchair and said it was time. He said he would call us on our cell phone in one hour then every 2 hours after that. We had to pick Kyle up and position him into the wheelchair. Kyle was still asleep.

We walked to the O.R. area with Kyle and the nurse and stopped at some service elevators. The nurse told us to take the elevators to the lobby, we had to leave him now. I started to cry and I hugged Kyle very tight and kissed his head. Then he woke. His eyes were wide open looking around. I saw tears come down his cheeks, and I had to leave.