Three days after being in the hospital, I came home. That is amazing to me because I spent three days in the hospital after having my son, Ethan. I was glad to head home. The constant interruptions, from nurses doing their rounds to housekeepers vacuuming in the middle of the night, kept me from sleeping for any length of time.
The drive felt endless. I kept my eyes closed most of the time because the visual stimulation from looking out the window and the light, made me nauseous. My good spirits following the surgery had vanished, and I was getting grouchy. Now that the morphine had completely disappeared from my system, my head ached. I couldn’t lay flat on my back because it caused intense discomfort. So, I slept while sitting up. My face was puffy and discolored.
I tried to be somewhat friendly when I got home, but mostly I wanted to be left alone. We had a chair tucked in a dark corner in which I took permanent residence. David bought me some earplugs. The kids stayed as quiet as they possibly could considering they were five and two. The funniest picture Mike took was of the happy face balloon hovering over my not-so-happy face.
Now, a year later, the ridge from the incision has almost entirely flattened. My head is still itchy and dry. I recently visited a salon for recommendations to correct the problem but nothing has worked yet. The beautician recommended keeping my hair longer because I have noticeable bald patches when my hair is pulled back. The heightened sensitivity is gone. I have occasional headaches. I feel back to normal. Except the weight I gained while being inactive hasn’t disappeared.
In a couple weeks I have an MRI scheduled to see if everything looks OK. The day I made the appointment, I had that old sick-to-my-stomach feeling. I guess it’s a post traumatic thing even though I would never say that the surgery traumatized me. My mom feels it too every time she goes in for a colon cancer check. It’s been four or five years now. She’s having a colonoscopy as I write. Even though every checkup has showed her to be free of cancer, she gets nervous about what the test will show. I think it’s a little bit like being cheated on by a spouse. You go through your life trusting in your good health until something happens. Then you never fully trust it again.
For me, this day one year later is less difficult, but I am reminded about health. My son’s school called to say he’d been sick all over himself and had a belly ache. I picked him up, and he reeked. The poor kid stayed in bed watching movies while I did homework and grading, and finished up my volunteer PR work.
It’s not easy watching your child battle an illness. A friend of a friend just lost her 18-year-old daughter to Leukemia. My daughter’s preschool teacher continues to balance work and regular mom duties with medical appointments and surgeries for her toddler son, who has had serious kidney problems. Last week he had another emergency surgery when his abdomen filled with urine. The school’s parents and fellow teachers are trying to keep her refrigerator stocked and do what little we can to make her life easier as she helps her son recover. One of my daughter’s three-year-old classmates has had brain surgery several times to remove tumors. He has the pasty, translucent skin of a child who has spent too much time in a hospital. When I see so many people coping with health issues, I am surprised by how oblivious I once was to it all.
For anyone wanting to read a moving account of parents dealing with a child’s chronic illness, I recommend a series of articles by Diana Sugg of the Baltimore Sun. She won a Pulitzer in 2003 for her stories. They are hard to read because they so effectively capture the tiny details and emotion that put you in the moment. In particular, I found “Present at Loved One’s Last Moments” to be especially moving. WARNING: Have tissue handy when reading.
Hey Jude 