Half breaths and heart beats

We wake up in the darkness of an unreasonably cold Winter morning. I've gotten a couple of hours of fitful sleep at best. A quick shower, some dark coffee and we're ready. Button is woken up, dressed in loose, warm clothing and reassured that he is going to be done and home in a few hours.

He's getting surgery today. It is an outpatient procedure to help correct his toe walking, but because he is small and likely to wiggle- he has to go under general anesthesia. We've prepped him intensively with visuals, a social story and a trip to the surgery center. We tried our best to not overload him with too much information - toeing a fine line between prepping him and scaring the bejesus out of him. He has his brave face on - sleepy but watchful eyes, trusting us to do the right thing by him. He's earning this rad subway train station toy set as a reward for the procedure and that is keeping him reasonably cheerful.
The surgery center and staff are very nice. They are patient with us and even though they do this everyday, they handle us with kid gloves and assuage our fears and concerns. Button obviously refuses his oral sedative (stuff tastes like Satan's butt), so we talk to him and hold him down for a shot. He's obviously in pain, but he's so brave. His eyes well up, but the tears don't fall because he's already drifting off to dreamland.
Even though he's asleep, we whisper our love and kisses to him. We promise to be there when he wakes up and his eyes flutter under his eyelids. God, I hope he heard us.

Now we wait.

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