And by Mouse Surgeon I Mean Surgically Trained Rodent.

This afternoon Simone will be having surgery to close her PDA, an errantly open blood vessel between the aorta and pulmonary artery. This surgery is being touted as The Thing That Will Make Her All Better, and in theory it sounds like an excellent idea. This open vessel is dropping her diastolic pressure and filling her lungs with fluid. It is impeding her progress on the ventilator, and has in fact resulted in increased oxygen needs. Two rounds of medication have failed to change the size of the opening one whit. I have no doubt that a cohort of Magic 8 Balls asked whether surgery is the best option would agree that IT IS DECIDEDLY SO.

Except…she is so tiny. They say her heart is the size of her fist, and her fist is the size of a small peanut M&M. Simone is really not much bigger than the bulbous nosed man on the Operation game board, and as I recall, that game was exceedingly difficult, even when extracting something as large and easy to grasp as, say, the Bread Basket. Admittedly, I did not have advanced surgical training back then (not to imply that I do now, though I have seen my share of televised medical dramas) but I was an uncommonly dexterous child. And today’s operation sounds like the sort of thing that would be possible to perform only via robot or mouse surgeon.

The PDA ligation procedure involves making a small incision in the side/backish area (technical term) of my daughter, lifting up my daughter’s lung to gain access to my daughter’s heart, and either placing a tiny clamp around the open ductus of my daughter or sewing it shut.

The most common complication of the procedure is damaged nerves or paralyzed vocal chords resulting from nicking something unintended during the procedure. Under these circumstances, I would feel much better if the pediatric surgeon would humor me by playing an exhibition game of Operation later this morning before surgery. I would be happy to provide the game itself, and if he can remove even the awkwardly shaped sparerib and the slender pencil without setting off the buzzer, then I will sign the consent forms. I don’t think this is an unreasonable request, seeing as my daughter’s surgeon is not the one up at five a.m. terrified and Googling pda ligation neonatal while holding his thumb and index finger apart to approximate the size of the vessel (or at least I sincerely, sincerely hope not). My nerves are threatening to strike. A reassuring demonstration of agility is the least he can do.