The Shoes I Hope Never to Wear

 

Today our Littlest Moo had surgery. It was very minor, the biggest concern was actually the anesthesia and he did wonderful! I tried really hard not to dwell on it a lot before hand and could feel the little hands of panic at the fringes of my thoughts but was successful in putting off any panic attacks. Maybe I’m not a great mom because I wasn’t spending hours worrying about it but for me there are just some things in life that just need to be done and we can’t invest too much time worrying about it. That isn’t to say that I wasn’t a bit concerned about the anesthesia but we have a very healthy and strong little boy so I was confident he we be just fine.

This was reaffirmed once we checked into the Pediatric Surgery Unit. I’m not sure what is says about me, but I actually was more upset seeing all the other kids waiting. The waiting area was really full and some children seemed to be there for outpatient procedures like our Littlest Moo and then there were families waiting and at least one teenager who appeared to be a cancer patient. When we entered there were two young boys (about 10 and 7) pulling what appeared to be their little sister  (18 months?) around in a wagon. She was dressed in a gown and clearly had her hand prepped for an IV. They were being super sweet and I thought it was nice that they were pulling her around. After we went to sit down the boys came to sit in the waiting room right next to me. We were letting Littlest Moo play and the older boy asks me his name so I told him. He told me he is cute and I thanked him. He asked what Littlest Moo was there for. I shared that he was going to have surgery. He asked me “What’s wrong with him?” to which I told him “They just have to clear his tear ducts.” He responded with “My little sister has Cancer, she’s having her first surgery right now” And all I could say was “That’s no good, I hope it goes well” I couldn’t even look at him and I was trying not to cry.I believe I said something to the effect that “ I bet you are a great big brother”.  I had no idea what to say to this little boy. I was so disappointed in myself. I like to think of myself as nurturing, someone who could have engaged this young child in conversation and keep him company while he waited for his sister to get out of surgery. Sure I couldn’t promise his sister would be okay but I could have done better than “that’s no good”. It was then that I REALLY looked around the room. There were clearly VERY sick children there waiting for surgery and families anxiously awaiting their child’s surgery be completed. What were there for was so… not a thing. Sure it was something he needed done but so minuscule in the grand scheme of things.

Littlest Moo did so well. He was carried away for his surgery with his little purple cow, didn’t even cry and when he went to recovery he was already awake. This upset me some because we weren’t there when he woke up, but he more than recognized us, wanted us to hold him and most importantly wanted to EAT.  Then we had to just entertain him until we could go. This room was difficult too because it is just a bunch of beds in one room where the children recover from surgery and I did see from other children what I feared Littlest Moo would do. There were some very upset children who were hurting. Meanwhile Littlest Moo was clapping and asking for more animal crackers. The bed next to us was the little girl who had cancer surgery. She had been in there for more than an hour and was just waking when we were leaving.

We are  thankful that if our  son has to have surgery, it is to unblock his tear ducts and is otherwise a very healthy boy. Our hearts go out to all those families and children and I hope to never be in their shoes.