If your child had outpatient surgery

[Jen500]

did the surgeon's office give you an exact date and time for the surgery ahead of time? Or something else?

[jewellsmommy]

My dd has had several. Normally they schedule just the date with me and give me all of the pre-op instructions and then call a few days before with the time of the surgery.

[jcs]

We received the date and arrival time for prep. I can't remember if they gave us the exact surgery time.

[jewellsmommy]

I should probably add that the reason for this is that they try to do the youngest children earliest because they won't be allowed to eat or drink after midnight, the night before. You know it is hard for the little ones to go without at least a drink in the morning. At least with the the slightly older ones you can explain why the can't eat or drink but you can't explain anything to a hungry or thirsty toddler!

 

DD's doctors would wait till the schedule (the no. of patients) was full and then set the time by ages.

[sassenach]

Usually the surgery date is scheduled 2-6 weeks in advanced, but the time isn't given till the night before. The Doc schedules his patients on the day he has the OR, but the OR scheduler puts them in the order that works best. Usually the younger the child, the earlier they are scheduled. The little ones have a harder time fasting than the older kids. Hope all goes well!

[Murmer]

With our ds we set the date based on days he does surgery and then the night before got the time to report, they did tell us they schedule youngest to oldest so our son 7 months at the time was the very first slot

[GoVanGogh]

DS has had five outpatient surgeries. We never knew the time until the day before, as it depended on the ages of the other children scheduled that day. As others have said, they try to schedule from youngest to oldest.

[MaMa2005]

DS has had two surgeries. We knew the date and time to be at the hospital and a rough estimate of the time of the surgery. Both times, surgery began within 15 minutes of the time we had been told. DS was age 2 and age 3 at the times of the surgeries.

 

I agree with the other posters - usually youngest go first, etc.

 

We are in a major metropolitan city with one of the top hospitals for children in the nation. May be why things run so smoothly.

[Mommyof4ks]

We were given an exact date, but we had to call the night before to get a specific time. They do surgery at our hospital in order of age, so the little ones don't have to go without food for so long. The down side is having the youngest child of the day and having to arrive at 6am, *sigh*.

[Jyniffrec]

We get exact dates and times but it sometimes things are later than scheduled. I think they schedule the younger ones first. We are called a couple of days before to firm everything up.

[Mergath]

Dd had one when she was eighteen months old. They had us show up as soon as the surgical center opened, at eight in the morning, I think it was. The actual surgery took place a couple of hours later.

[LizzyBee]

We got the date a week ahead of time, and the time the day before.

[elise1mds]

Between the kids, we've done 4 surgeries.

 

We've never known times till the night before. Dates are given... well, one time it was three days in advance, but the rest of the time it was at least a couple of weeks ahead of time. We did get pre-op times in advance. The younger the child, the earlier the time typically. DS' first surgery was when he was 3 months, 1 day old, and his surgery was at 7 a.m. We had to be at the hospital at 6:00. That was an agonizing morning.

 

You typically won't get to talk to the anesthesiologist till right before the surgery, so if you have any questions for him/her, have them ready and ask them quickly. Anesthesiologists like me now because it's old hat after four lol

 

Take a book or drink to try to distract you while you wait during the surgery itself, because that is the worst.

 

OH, and depending on the age of the child, be prepared for horrible crankiness when they wake up from anesthesia. The cry is like nothing you've ever heard come out of your kid.

 

Thoughts are with you! Surgery is never fun, no matter how "minor."

[Tap]

We were given a time and told if they needed to change it, they would call. Ds was 2 at the time so may be the 'youngest goes first' rule is why they figured he would go in at the earliest time. It was early, 6am ish, I think. His surgery was scheduled less than a week from his diagnosis and it was with a urologist, which may not be the most common surgery for a young child.

[AuntieM]

We were also told youngest first. Also, if a kid comes down with a cold surgery for him is cancelled. Nurse told us it never fails that at least one kid on the surgery schedule gets sick and that required calling and rescheduling the others, so at our hospital, they decided to just make the arrival time calls the evening before.

[Jen500]

Thanks everyone!

Edited May 17, 2010 by Jen3boys

[Jen500]

You typically won't get to talk to the anesthesiologist till right before the surgery, so if you have any questions for him/her, have them ready and ask them quickly. Anesthesiologists like me now because it's old hat after four lol

 

 

Ummmm......what kinds of questions might I want to ask?

[Mrs Mungo]

We were told the date and the time we had to arrive. Time of the procedure is often adjusted, depending on what else might be going on at the hospital.