If you are worried about your son being scared, doing it during the school year (as per Abbie’s suggestion might be good. He can look forward to going back to school and telling everyone about his heart surgery. He get’s offa bit of school, and doesn’t miss sumer vacation. It could be far better for his morale.
Now my own story. I’m hoping it has a moral. When my daughter was 9 months, she had to have some tests for a blocked kidney. As they were injecting the dye, she started screaming, very uncharacteristically. We told the nurse that something was wrong, and the nurse dismissed our fears, claimed that all parents worry too much. A few minutes later, she was screaming even more. We mentioned it to the nurse again, and again were dismissed for being silly worrying parents. So we swallowed our concerns, and just tried to comfort our screaming baby. Five minutes later the dye still wasn’t showing up on the screen, the nurse decided to check the IV. She unwrapped the bandages to find out that she had missed the vein, and that all of the fluid had collected in her hand. It looked like a round little balloon at the end of her arm, with five fingers sticking out. All angry red.
We were furious, mostly with ourselves, for not insisting more that something was wrong, for not trusting that we knew our daughter better than some nurse.
Best of luck with your son’s surgery. It’ll be harder for you than it is for him.