Whew, what a long day, and as I say these words, it’s only 2.34 p.m.

Eastern Time, but we had to get to the hospital by 8.15 this morning, so it’s been a long day because we just got back.

Your Daily Lex.

So my friend and yours, Liam Friedman, he’s probably more my friend than yours, but that’s okay.

He’s also my son.

He needed a colonoscopy, so that’s fun.

There’s a history of IBD in the family.

Lauren and two of her siblings both have IBD, and Liam had seen a pediatric gastroenterologist over the summer.

They had done a fecal study, which is super fun for everybody involved, and a number of his that was supposed to be between 0 and 50 came back at 6,800-something, which is high, as it turns out.

So they said, let’s get a colonoscopy and also an endoscopy.

Basically, let’s explore both ends of Liam.

And so that meant yesterday was prep day, and Liam was a champion of prep day.

He really did a great job.

He stayed in good spirits.

He and I had some chill time together in between his visits to the lavatory, but he did a great job.

And then today, of course, was the actual procedure.

They told us to get there at 8.15 for a 9.45 procedure, which began at around 10.30-ish, 10.20, somewhere there.

And Liam was understandably nervous.

I believe the hard part was over when he had finished with all the prep, one must do to do a colonoscopy.

But he was understandably, as a 12-year-old kid, he was nervous being in the children’s hospital same-day surgery center.

And he met with some very kind nurses, and man, pediatric nurses are just among some of the best people in the universe.

And we’re waiting for a while, and he’s just nervous, and they had to give him an IV.

He could decide if he wanted to get his anesthesia via a mask or via an IV, and he chose IV because he hates bad smells and they told him it wouldn’t smell good, although he still loves the Paris Film Museum.

But so for a while, we’re just waiting because it’s not time yet, so they’re not anesthetizing him, and he’s just getting more and more nervous.

And eventually, they come in to give him, through his IV, a relaxant that’s prior to the actual anesthesia.

And within about 10 seconds, literally, you could watch his whole body relax, and Liam got super drunk, and it was quite amusing.

And I reminded him, not for the first time, hence reminding, that soon they were going to take him back to actually do the procedure, and we had to say goodbye to him, we couldn’t go with him.

And he said, well, that’s not very nice.

And I said, well, they didn’t give me a choice.

I have to leave you at this time.

And then, you know, they do the procedure, and so you’re in this parent waiting room.

And there was actually a screen set up where you could see code ID numbers for all the kids who were doing procedures, where you could see what phase they were in.

You know, prepping for surgery, in procedure, waking up, in recovery room, going home, whatever.

Except Liam’s number never showed up on that screen.

I chose not to worry about it because I knew where he was, and his nurse at one point came out very early in the process because he had complained, when they actually started the anesthesia, that it burned a little bit, and she wanted us to know if he talked about that afterwards, that she thought he would forget, but that if he talked about it, that we could tell him it was only for a few seconds, and then you were asleep, don’t worry about it.

He did not bring it up.

So I haven’t brought it up.

And then, of course, while you’re in that waiting room, for us it was more than an hour and a half, you occasionally hear them calling for, like, emergency medical needs on various pediatric floors, and you’re listening, like, are they going to say the seventh floor?

Are they going to send an emergency crew to the seventh floor, where we are?

And it’d be like the sixth floor, the fifth floor, and you’re like, am I a jerk for being relieved that it’s on some other floor?

But man, like I said, it seems like incredible people who work at those hospitals, and also just an awful job, since it’s not always a success story.

But in our case it was.

So they tell us, hey, you can come in to be with Liam now, he’s in the recovery room, he’s not awake yet, and let’s not wake him up.

The whole time they’d said, let him wake up on his own.

And then eventually they got annoyed that he wasn’t waking up, so they started doing things like putting cold washcloths on his face and sitting him up more and more.

And the first thing he could say was he was coherent, which took a long time.

We waited there probably about 40 minutes before he had any coherence, was, did they start yet?

And we said, yes, it’s all done.

He said, but they didn’t put me to sleep yet.

And we said, well, no, you just woke up.

Then I was helping him get dressed, and I’m like, okay, I need you to pull your pants up.

So we got that taken care of, and then he announced that he wanted to go on roller coasters, which we decided we wouldn’t do.

He really wanted to go out for Chinese food, having not eaten any solid foods in a long time at this point.

But the nurses said, don’t get super heavy food right away.

So we got him a breakfast wrap, an egg and cheese wrap from Dunkin’ Donuts, and a donut.

And he was mad that we didn’t get him Chinese food.

He is still mad that we didn’t get him Chinese food.

He’s still a little bit drunk, but he’s sobering up, as am I, because I drank the whole time.

Just kidding.

Licks.