Surgery

AJ had a pre-op appt today.

On Wednesday he gets a myringotomy, his second set of tubes and this time an Adenoidectomy.  (Adenoids removed)  The doctor says that AJ will leave the operating room with his full hearing back.

And this can only be a good thing.  I swear, I think I have been living with teenagers with all the blaring music and TV lately.  And somehow Veggie Tales loses some of the appeal at 10 decibels  Add to the volume two kids singing at the top of THEIR lungs…."Oh where is my hairbrush" and you have enough to drive you nuts.

AJ knew that he was up for surgery but today it hit him what was really happening.  I was explaining to him what the procedure is and where they will be making the incision and where the tubes will go.  But the touching part was when I showed him where his adenoids are (with the aid of the wall poster in the doc’s office) and then explained that they would be taking them out.  AJ looked at me with the most serious eyes I have seen from him lately and said, "Mom, they will be taking something out of my body???"  And then, "You mean they will be taking something from my body, something that is in my body right now.??? "   And I will say that I understand exactly what he is feeling.  It happened to me just before having my tubes tied and I felt extremely violated and venerable.

I have always had a problem with a doctor telling me that there will be no side effects or no difference in your system whatsoever except that all your problems will disappear.  That the body will not even know it is gone or if they are tied (in my case)  That we are so much better off chopping something out or tying something up that our bodies only benefit from it.  Just find it hard to believe.  Why did God put it there if that were completely true?

So when AJ said that to me all I could do was cry.  A little.  I mean a tear or two I didn’t really break down in the doc’s office, NO, that came a little later when I re told the story to Tom.  Who by the way does not understand at all but then he didn’t have the snippy snippy now did he.  Ooops, Pardon me for being snippy.  And pardon the pun.

So I wait to hear what time his surgery is scheduled.  Then no food 6 hours prior and no sports or hard play for 2 weeks after   T-W-O W-E-E-K-S……Can you imagine MY AJ still for two weeks.  I certainly can not.

And in those two weeks kindergarten starts so in his first week he will have a sports restriction.   But I’m sure he will weather it well.  Of course there was the warning about bright red blood within 7 – 14 days and if you see it Go.to.the.emergency.room.   Yes, I will worry a bit.  The first time he went through the surgery it was the anesthiology that wigged me out.  I all but insisted to be in the room when he was put under so that he could go to sleep with me in the room and wake up with me in the room.   It didn’t exactly work out like that but it was close.

The blood thing always gets me when the source is the throat.  I remember a story in Parents or one of those parenting magazines about a mother whose little boy died because he swallowed too much blood and she kept trying to tell the doctors that something was abnormal but they said it was nothing to worry about.  I can’t remember the details but I know that he ingested too much blood and it poisoned him.  Isn’t that a strange thought?  Blood that comes out of you, blood that never actually leaves your body can poison you.

I bawled with that article.  And I was reading it in a doctor’s office.  Probably at my OB’s office where it’s not quite as strange to fall apart while reading a magazine.

Anyway… I’m waiting for the results of the surgery not only for his physical well being but his emotional as well.  I have been in denial about AJ’s behavior over the years.  And now I am faced with some intensive therapy.  Once I get through the emotions of it.  And I’m right in the thick of it so I can’t even write about it.  But I would like to….soon.

My baby boy, 5.5 years ago I stared into the deepest bluest eyes I have ever seen and fell totally in love with him.  And now thinking that I have more than just a strong willed child breaks my heart.  And because I have now become a crying mess I will end here.  One day I will share.