She does it again

Yes, we're home. Jasmine has once again exceeded our wildest expectations by being discharged a mere 24 hours after surgery. I would be telling a lie if I said that it has been an easy 24 hours, but considering how difficult it can be, we are counting our blessings. Let's just start at the beginning...
Here's our little rock star, bringing down the house. Or at the very least, having most of the pre-op staff wrapped around her every finger. The toys, crayons, play-doh, teddy bear and push toys kept coming until her surgical team arrived shortly after 11 AM.
Jasmine had her run of the place, and strapped old bear and new bear on for an hour of riding around the nurses station. The lack of food finally started to catch up to her and she had a full melt down right before she was given her pre-surgery sedative. While this was supposed to calm her down, it had the more curious effect of turning her into a belligerent drunk.
Jasmine was inconsolable after surgery, an expected effect of coming out of anesthesia. While she is the only child we've ever had to go through this with, we are convinced that she adds her own willful element to this unpleasant process. It was a long hour and a half of screaming and thrashing and pulling at her IV before she finally calmed down and went back to sleep.

Jasmine had a fitful night of sleep, but because of a somewhat serendipitous event we were able to take walks in this wagon with her faithful neigh-neigh strapped in. A nurse was trying to adjust her IV when it suddenly came out. Apparently this is not an opportune event since putting an IV back into a unsedated 2 year old is, well, let's just say undesirable. But because Jasmine signed for juice as soon as she was conscious and started drinking immediately, her surgeon decided that she could continue on without her IV and all the adjoining wires for the rest of the night. This simple mishap allowed me to hold her, walk her and put her to bed in her own crib throughout the night. She was certainly the only child in post-op recovery without an IV line and she took full advantage of the opportunity. The wagon came only after hours of her insisting I carry her around the ward and my arms were about to fall off.

Jasmine was running around the ward all morning looking for things to play with and only had her first melt down when the pain meds wore off an hour early. Our biggest challenge is keeping ahead of her pain and trying to distract her when her meds wear off before she can have her next dose. In the meantime, she has been so close to her normal self since coming home, wanting to play, using her potty, drinking from a cup and torturing the dog that we can hardly believe her surgery happened yesterday. We'll see how the night goes for her but once again, Jasmine has managed to amaze us with her effervescent spirit and a deep well of goodwill.