Allow me a moment of self-confidence, if you will: I’m good at a lot of things. A lot. I’m a speed reader. People like my cooking. And for esoteric classic rock trivia? None better.
That said, put me in a hospital scenario and I’m a tweaky, abysmal basket case. The antiseptic scent makes my head spin and my skin crawl. The sight of needles makes me babble. The idea of needles and general anesthetic and I.V.s makes me a truly crappy adult.
Throughline: Guess where I spent my Friday?!
A little backstory- Jasper was born with an attached upper frenulum (that piece of skin that connects your lip to your gums), and it was really attached. Since he was tiny, I’d been saying to anyone who’d listen that it needed to be snipped, it would be a problem for speech, yadda yadda. (Side note: When a mother of three mentions something amiss about the physicality of her youngest child, you don’t question her. She’s not looking for fun extracurriculars. She doesn’t want the co-pay or the scheduled sitter any more than you do. This is not her first rodeo. In fact, it’s her third rodeo.) And remember when Jasper chipped his front tooth earlier in the summer? It wasn’t a huge chip, but the biggest problem with it was what usually happened any time Jasper led with his face (which was roughly once a day); the frenulum tore, bled like cray, and healed with way more scar tissue than I felt good about. So I took him to our dentist, who agreed with me that whoa this looked terrible, why hadn’t anyone clipped that thing yet. Except now the scar tissue was wrapping down between his front two teeth and could no longer be resolved in a doctor’s office. My pediatrician agreed. So did the surgeon at Lurie Children’s Hospital. (All three of them initially said it probably wouldn’t be done at his current age- until they took a peek under his lip. Then, all three loudly stated that- yep, that sure needed surgery. They rarely see ’em that bad! Ha HA!)
Which brings us to last Friday. Or rather, what should’ve been Monday, for when the surgery was originally booked. (Apologies for not posting on that day; my brain has been a little tired this month.) I got a call Wednesday asking me if I wanted to take an earlier day and slot. I said yes, even though my mind was all- So you’re just gonna do without that built-in panic prep time of the weekend?! (Honestly, it’s like I don’t even know myself.)
But take it we did, and the night before the procedure was spent packing way more than even the Imelda Marcos of toddlers would need for a relatively quick outpatient surgery. And even though Jasper- usually- isn’t up in the middle of the night asking for tea n’ crumpets, I felt like I was starving him with instructions for no food after midnight. (For an 11 a.m. surgery! Do you know how much that kid generally eats between wakey time and nappy time? Like- the equivalent of five man-sized plates of straight venison. Kid was hangry. I was sympathetically hangry.)
Long story slightly shorter- the good folks at Lurie are really, really good. Once admitted, they whisked us through admission, pre-op, and high-fives with both the surgeon and the anesthesia team. The drug Versed was offered (I said yes oh-so lightning fast…before realizing it was for my son, not me. Not me.) They doped him to make the the transition to the O.R. easier (again, I asked, where was MY drug?) and they carried him off; Jasper floppily waving as the marvelously empathetic anesthesia team carried him off, wrapped in his puppy blanket, with his red puppy, two giraffe loveys, and pacifier in tow.
But here’s the thing. Right before I handed him off, he looked up at me questioningly. I kissed him and told him it was all right. It was fine. He was okay.
And I totally lied.
Because- ultimately- he was okay. He was fine. It was all right. But in that moment? He was nervous and about to undergo something painful. I knew he’d be “fine” in terms of his lip healing and returning to my arms as soon as humanly possible. But I couldn’t let him know the gradations of “all right,” and there was no way for me to apologize in advance for the thing he didn’t even know about, the thing P.J. and I had agreed to have done, the thing that was seeming more and more like a stupid idea- could I please just get this kid dressed and put him back in my car?
“You’re all right,” I called to him as he was carted off to have a mask strapped to his face and have other things done that I- really- shouldn’t dwell on. The last pre-op glimpse I had of him was his wobbly smile, because he believed me.
Being a parent is heart-stabbingly painful sometimes.
Fun aside: I had been warned by our nurse that toddlers who come out of a Versed haze generally tend towards “crabbiness.” He’s one and a half. I know crabbiness. But mere seconds after fluttering his eyes open and shyly smiling up at me in recovery? He turned into the flipping HULK. Wires were ripped off of his arms and ankles. An offered juice cup was shredded in frustration/rage. He pushed away from me as I tried to hold him/keep him from bashing his newly stitched face into the bed rail.
“WHAT IS HAPPENING,” I calmly asked the nurse.
“Oh. The Versed. It makes them crabby.”
We laughed. And laughed and laughed and restrained and ransacked the recovery ward for a juice receptacle which wouldn’t offend. (Oddly enough, it was a baby bottle that did the trick- something he’s never actually used- because his numbed mouth couldn’t handle the normal straw or sippy top action.)
I call this “Numbed and pacified.” (Also- they tucked him in post-op with his loveys. I mean HONESTLY.)
Two hours later, we were home. And he slept- pretty normally- through the night once I settled him. Meals were consumed like a champ. And less than a week later? He’s already running face-first into things. (…Yaaay.)
So maybe I didn’t lie. It was all right. Even though it totally sucked and I pretended not to cry once I was alone in the hospital and got pity stares which made me hide my face and smear my ill-advised makeup and hope that Jasper didn’t have some weird chemical or medical allergies which- lets be brutally honest- would not be that far of a stretch given his medically odd mother.
Normal stuff like that.
But just this morning he smiled up at me, using his whole, non-swollen mouth. His upper teeth were fully showcased for the first time in forever. He said “pi-ZZA,” enunciating the whole word- again, for the first time in forever. And sure, I did not give him pizza, but I smiled back at him. Because maybe- maybe- this childhood hurdle won’t be tallied against me in the long list of future therapy sessions.
Maybe.
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