Tuesday, April 22, 2008

...ectomies on the calendar...

I can't catch up. I keep waiting for everything to pause so I can prioritize and elaborate (or belabor, as some may see it). No dice. It's not even as manageable as "one thing after another." It's all at once. A regular 40 ring circus with the potential for new start-up rings - mid-show without notice. Some rings are bland, some are uproariously amusing, some are morbid and sad, some are annoying, some are gut-wrenching, some are fun, some are infuriating.

I'll just pick one, then. Newest one. Addie will have a laryngoscopy, tonsillectomy and possible adenoidectomy on May 28th. I know - routine surgery. But it's her third major surgery and I now feel we've weathered enough of them to declare that it does not get any easier to consider.

The fact that she is having it because of severe obstructive sleep apnea leaves little room for mulling the should we/shouldn't we question, but that just frees us to consider all the other details.

She will stay overnight, something she has not had to do for previous surgeries. She will be in pain and she will not understand why we allow it. That's the old news. But at least there will be no casts this time, nothing but the hurt to keep her down afterwards.

We knew it was coming, but putting it on the calendar lops of that wild, secret hope I must have had that this would heal itself, that it would just go away on its own. Alright, reality. Lay it on. No such thing as ready, so have at it.

On the upside, I have a few handy words/phrases new to my lexicon as of today:
laryngomalacia
argon plasma cauterization
propophal
roxicet

What if I had nothing but a dictionary at my disposal? Shudder to think.

I know she'll be fine. Hopefully better than fine, if this takes care of the issues. It's just a hard thing to do, as many of you know too well, to give your child over to someone with a sharp instrument in their hands. To have to sign on the line where it says they can use that sharp instrument on your child. To take your hurting child home in your arms, fumbling with sheets of instructions and warnings about giving her pain meds, but not too much, warnings about how she'll dry up if you don't give her enough to drink, about how much of a fever is too much... all while she looks at you, groggy, glad you're holding her, but maybe confused about why you let this happen to her.

Lucky for us, she's the most forgiving person we've ever encountered.