Eden't first appointment with the eye surgeon was today in Dallas. Which meant that she and I had a girls' trip and stayed in a hotel overnight. She was so excited about it. There were promises of hotel pool swimming, room service, and movies. Plus no brothers around to muck things up.
Things started to go downhill almost immediately when I got into Austin's car after church (which ran late due to a guest preacher) and discovered that when he got the oil changed on Saturday, they'd somehow switched it from MPH to KPH. And since I don't do metric, that was alarming to see that I was driving 90 in a 55 zone. I pulled over and called Austin and after another stop and both of us googling and checking the manual, I still couldn't figure out how to change it. It's like that part has been deleted from the menu. So I googled the conversion and stuck to that as close as I could. I made it there and back with no tickets, so I call that a win.
About 60 miles from our destination, just over halfway there, Eden threw up. She'd fallen asleep before we got on 20 and woke up long enough to throw up. She stayed awake while I pulled over at the first station and ran in to get wipes and napkins, saying in a sad voice "I throwed up." Luckily it was mostly on her and her seat so I was able to clean it up fairly quickly. She hadn't eaten lunch so there wasn't more. She fell back asleep about 5 minutes after we got back on the road.
At that point, I swear I'd been driving for 3 days.
We got to the hotel ok, and after checking in, Eden took a bath to clean up from the vomit. She enjoyed splashing around and I tried to find a restaurant with mac and cheese close by because that's what she was demanding. Eventually, we decided to check out the hotel restaurant and were pleased to see they had it, so we sat down. Then she declared she wanted chicken. Whatever, man. Her meal was free, which was good because she ate about 1/3 of her fries and like, 1/2 of a chicken strip before declaring she was full.
It was so humid and cool, I didn't want to swim. I tried telling her it was too cold, that the pool was closed, that her floatie was broken, but she was having none of it. So we put on our suits and got into the water. Which was super cold. She hung on to me because it was deeper than she was comfortable with and her floatie really WOULDN'T air up. I told her only 10 minutes but talked her into going inside after about 6 with promises of ice cream. She decided on a chocolate bar instead and we went upstairs.
Changing BACK into pjs and eating our treats, we tried to find something on tv to watch but the guide wasn't working and the remote was sketchy too. She took it from me and banged it on everything in the room, then declared it fixed. It was not. She decided she needed another bath after eating her chocolate (and she did) so she got it. I had a headache so around 930, we turned everything off and tried to go to sleep.
I say tried because I was successful, but she kept getting up and walking around. She pulled her food out of the fridge and had a little to eat, then put it away and tried to go visit other people. Every noise got a gasp and a "what's that noise?" I have no idea when she fell asleep but she woke up screaming at 4 am because Roby (her robot) was missing. I didn't get up but she apparently found him/her (it changes) because s/he was there in the morning. She laid there for a little while and just as I was about to go back to sleep she started crying and saying she wanted to go home. I told her it was just a little longer, that we'd have pancakes, then see the doctor, then go home. She repeated this a few times, then we both fell asleep again.
I woke up again around 6 with my headache intact so I took a shower and some medicine and started packing up. Eden woke up during this and was eager to get dressed and go get pancakes. Which she then refused to touch because they weren't from the Flipping Egg. And she cried when she dropped her strawberry on the floor but then decided she hates strawberries after taking a bite of mine.
We had time before the appointment so we went back to the room and watched some PBS, which she loved, while I finished packing and loaded up the car.
Austin's car doesn't have gps so I was using maps on my phone. Since I couldn't see it, I kept making wrong turns on the way to the office. Which was frustrating. We still got there about 20 minutes early. And then proceeded to wait until about half an hour past her scheduled appointment time. And then more waiting in the exam room. They decided to dilate her eyes to see if she needs glasses, which seemed odd since they measured her vision at 20/20 and 20/25. I think it's a standard thing, though, so I didn't argue. Thirty minutes of waiting for the dilation, then another fifteen for the glasses check, then waiting again for the surgery scheduler....it all added up to a three hour visit. Eden was honestly good the whole time, but she was getting antsy and I was losing my patience with her. I didn't get a good night's sleep and still had a 3.5 hour drive ahead of me, so her dancing around wasn't amusing to me.
She fell asleep almost immediately in the car and slept the whole way home. I stopped in Arlington for gas and to grab food and was dismayed when I realized Panda Express didn't put a fork in my bag. So I ate orange chicken and rice with my fingers while driving on the highway. Not the best idea, but I didn't make a mess or have any problems. I won't do it again, though.
The general feeling was we don't HAVE to do surgery now, we could continue to patch. Her vision is improving and her eyes are doing fine. She doesn't need glasses and she doesn't object to the patches as much as she used to, but both Austin and I feel like let's just do it already. She's young enough that if we do it now, she likely won't remember, or will only have vague memories of it. So we have a tentative date for the surgery. Because of her heart issues, we have to have the surgery at the main campus, not at the satellite surgery center across the street, so that means cardiac anesthesiologists and the ophthalmic surgeon and everyone else have to coordinate schedules. It's an out patient procedure, though because of her age they'll put her under general anesthesia so we'll be there for a little longer. I'm not sure if they'll want us to stay overnight, but they seemed to think we wouldn't need to. I'll get all those certain details later to help with figuring out everything with the other three for that time. They also said they'd want to see her a week and a month after, but if we can get our local eye doctor to do that, I'd much prefer that. And her local pediatrician will do the pre-op physical about 2 weeks before. I have to wait for a definite surgery date to schedule that. Plus on top of all that, she'll be due her annual cardio appointment in December. In Dallas.
So we're home again, she's in a good mood (ish) and Feta and Rebekah seem to have missed me and we've got more immediate things on the agenda, like Austin and Elijah's birthdays and various other smaller things. We survived the trip. *I* survived the trip.
Hitting the road Sunday afternoon
Bringing her suitcase in with her. And dragging it upside down.
Playing with her dinner rather than eating it
Eating AND playing with her chocolate bar.
Reading the "story" on her breakfast menu
Waiting at Children's.
In the exam room
In the second waiting room while her eye dilated
Asleep in the car on the way home. It was a long 24 hours for her too.
Shut up, fortune cookie!
