Surgery

Emma was born with a mole on her left ankle. It's kind of interesting because while I was pregnant with her I had moles removed on my face. Anyway, the pediatrician said to watch it and see if it got any bigger or darker. I didn't think it was getting bigger or darker, but at her 6 month check up he asked me to take her to a dermatologist and have it biopsied. A couple of weeks later the results came back and the mole was A-typical (I believe that's what it's called). Basically it meant that the mole could turn cancerous. Not cool! We were sent to a pediatric plastic surgeon in Phoenix so we could get the low down on how they'd remove it and when we could get in to have it done.

The procedure was really similar to mine, except that since she's a baby and squirmy they had to put her under. The surgery was scheduled for the Wednesday after we got back from Utah at 9 am. We had to be at the surgery center at 7:30 am to get all the paper work done and Emma all ready for her big day.

Ken and I got there with her and had plenty of waiting - not really fun when you're thinking about your baby going through this, but it turned out fine. The doctor was very skilled. The nurses were really nice and the anesthesiologist was really kind and answered all the questions we had.

It turned out to be really fast too. After only about 20-30 minutes they were calling "the parents of Emma Checketts". The bummer was that in recovery only one of us was allowed back there at a time. I went back first (and only as it turned out) to see how the little miss was doing. She was crying and pretty upset, but calmed down really quickly. All the nurses and doctors were impressed with how well she did for the procedure and how quickly she calmed down and had some juice. We were able to leave about 15 minutes after she came out, which they told me was really fast for a baby coming out of general anesthesia. She's such a trooper!

We went to lunch and then took Ken to work. Emma fell asleep while we were at lunch and ended up sleeping a fair amount of the day (I can't blame her - I'd want to sleep too!). She couldn't go swimming for 10 days after and that was really all the direction they gave us. The stitches were internal and would dissolve and the doctors got everything that they needed to. The bummer about not swimming was that she wouldn't be able to go into the ocean while we were on vacation in San Diego - oh, well.