Dental Surgery with autism

NOTE: I am working on getting this post up for family and friends wondering how Jacob's surgery went yesterday.  I'll keep adding to it over the next day or two until it's finished...

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The time finally came for Jacob to have dental surgery under general anesthesia yesterday.   We've been talking about this for at least two years.  He is not able to get cleanings or decent x-rays at the dentist, just general checks. We knew some problems were building and he was not a candidate for in-office sedation.  Recently I found two broken molars (one on each side on the top) and with the dentist decided the time had come.

We went in early yesterday morning - Jacob amazingly didn't ask for anything to eat before we went.  This is weird because he always wants to eat right away.  He did get one sip of his mixed berry juice but didn't even complain when I told him just one sip.   We got there at 7:15 and he was supposed to go in at 7:30.

No such luck, it turned out to be 8:45 when they called him back for prep.   I still can't believe he hadn't asked to eat or drink in all that time.  We had talked to him about getting a 3 second shot, so he put his "jammies" on and then got a shot of Versed in his right shoulder.  This picture is from right after.  He was rubbing it but kind of laughing at the same time.

At first he was giggling nervously and then we could see that the Versed was starting to relax him.  We just kept telling him it was okay and he was going to get sleepy.  After a few minutes he was laughing and said, "More shot please?!"  We all got a good laugh out of that one, and I heard nurses giggling all throughout the prep area.  Guess they don't hear that very often!  But then the Versed got stronger and he wasn't so happy about it anymore.  He looked nervous but we were still explaining everything to him and repeating his schedule...shot, go blow up a balloon (this is what they tell the kids when they put the mask on them in the OR), then night-night, then wake up and eat grape popsicles!  

I was speaking to the nurse and then noticed that he was bucking up and down on the bed and he also was scratching up Chris' arm.  I think it was just getting a little too weird for him and he was fighting back a bit.  Here is a quick video of him after that...he was really wanting to roll over on to his tummy.

To be continued... ;)