Surgery

Today (when I'm writing this, which is still technically Thursday), Acorn had surgery to finally finish the hypospaduis repar that we started just about 3 years ago.

It's been a tough evening of pain management and distraction (and over an hour spent tracking down a specific med he needs post-surgery). Acorn has screamed himself hoarse today, and is far too jumpy for my comfort.

And it followed a long morning of not eating, being the next-to-last case in the OR, and trying to get my own fasting blood work done after he went back, but them taking over an hour of what turned out to be a 90 minute surgery.

We're hoping tomorrow (today by the time you read this) will be better.

A funny thing happened in the pre-op room. We got several staff members that didn't know us, and one asked if this was Acorn's first procedure. We kind of laughed and said no. And then they wanted to know what else he'd had done. A quick run through puts this at either 14 or 15 procedures total....and he only just turned 5 a month ago.

For those of you with kids with medical issues, you'll understand when I say that's not really a lot of procedures. After all, another friend's daughter had a procedure done last week that puts them in the mid-70s, count wise, and her child is only 7.

On the other hand, those of you more familiar with typical kids might be thinking this is an outrageous number of procedures - I remember one mother I know getting upset that her 3 year old was going to have tubes put in her ears, and it would be her first surgery ever, and she was just too young for that sort of thing. That same week Leaf, at 8 months, was having her 4th procedure, and that didn't count the month that she spent sedated.

It's all about perspective, you know?

Some days, it's easier to find that perspective than others - and I'll be the first to tell you that compassion for others is easier on days when you find that perspective. I'm guessing that it's easier to find perspective on days when you don't have a sobbing child, but right now, even the fact that I have to say that suggests to me that there are some people (on both sides of the special needs divide) who will never find it.