Surgery During a Pandemic (COVID-19, 2020) – Part 1

When we discovered that our son was going to need surgery during a pandemic, we had lots of questions. We weren’t sure if the risks outweighed the benefits or what the process would be like. In the end, overall it was a great surgical experience, especially during a pandemic (COVID-19)!

Why did we need surgery during a pandemic?!

We were informed back in December 2019, that our son was going to need to have surgery before he turned 1 year old. He is okay, nothing major, but something that does need to be taken care of now so it doesn’t cause problems in the future. At the time, the first case of Coronavirus (COVID-19) was not reported from China yet. We scheduled our surgery for the earliest time available, which was in February 2020.

February came around and it was an awful Influenza season. The twin babies had a virus for a couple weeks and later our daughter was diagnosed with Influenza A. She was miserable with a high fever for 5 days, but that will be a story for another time. Anyways, it was a difficult decision for us to make but we decided we weren’t comfortable with our son having surgery, mainly because of the possible intubation complications with an upper respiratory infection. We cancelled the day before his surgery and rescheduled for the next available date in April.

In February, there were only 53 known cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19) and no deaths in the USA. The virus was mainly on the west coast or the 3 major cities. Where my family lives, we weren’t necessarily thinking about the virus outbreak when we rescheduled.

April came and our state was shut down. Our children’s hospital was not allowed to perform any surgeries unless they were an emergency or considered essential. At the time, our surgery wasn’t considered essential due to the type of surgery and the age time frame recommended. We didn’t have a choice and were rescheduled for May. Honestly, we thought this was a good decision and we were naively optimistic that this whole coronavirus mess was going to be cleared up by there!

May arrived and we were certain we were going to be rescheduled again because our state was still closed. And even if it wasn’t, we were convinced it wasn’t a safe time to have the surgery. We were pretty good at following the stay at home rules and staying safe. We didn’t want to risk getting our children or parents sick. I was shocked when I received a call from the children’s hospital that the surgery was still on and less than a week away!

How did we decide that now was the right time for the surgery?

I got the call from the children’s hospital when we were busy preparing lunch for 3 hungry children. First, I didn’t know what day it was because during quarantine all days blend together. Then I wasn’t even mentally prepared for my son to have surgery because in my head we were already rescheduled. The nurse on the phone stated that the rules have now been changed. They now can perform his surgery, but before his surgery he is required to have a COVID-19 nasal swab test.

I’ve seen the tik-toks! Those nasal swab tests looked awful! One of the major reasons why we were following the stay at home rules was because I didn’t want to put my kids through that! So, I quickly dismissed this. I said that I didn’t want to do the test and will wait until the test isn’t required. The nurse was kinda surprised. She said that we will then need to wait until he receives a vaccine which won’t be until at least 2021. 2021?! The realization that this coronavirus was going to be around a lot longer than May, finally sunk in. Call me blissfully ignorant if you want.

Now we were down to the wire with getting my son’s surgery in during the recommended age range. I called and spoke with the nurse from the surgeon’s office with lots of questions. I wanted to know if the risks of getting coronavirus from the hospital outweighed the benefits of getting the surgery on-time. Would a few months really make a difference? Would a year make a difference? It turned out that these answers were unclear, especially since no one has a crystal ball and knows how this virus is going to play out or if the surgery being postponed past the recommended time is really going to cause problems. The nurse said that children weren’t being affected by COVID-19 as much as adults. However, the CDC has made a connection between COVID-19 and Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome in children. All the nurse could really reassure me on was that the surgeon, who is in his 60/70s, feels very safe to perform his surgeries in the hospital.

I spoke with my nursing friends and asked them their opinions. This was a big decision for me and I wanted to make sure that I was making the right decision for my son. If the pandemic wasn’t going on, his surgery would already be done, but this really complicated things for me. My friends all agreed. They agreed that this was a hard decision considering the pandemic. Many of my friends are ER nurses and test for COVID-19, have been tested for COVID-19, or seen it first hand. Another friend had a personal connection to someone who didn’t get the surgery when they were younger and had major complications later in life. They were a great resource of information.

In the end, we decided that the unknown was scary and the biggest reason why we needed to do the surgery. We don’t know if there is going to be another spike in coronavirus cases with the states reopening soon. It’s unclear if waiting is going to be beneficial or if waiting is going to cause harm to our son.

Woah! So, many things to consider.

To read about the infant nasal swab coronavirus testing, click here.

Part 2, to be continued… click here to read.

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