Tuesday 13 June 2017

Ok?

This time next week it will be all over.

Hopefully.

Or will it?

Probably not.

Leaving aside unavoidable cancellations, this time next week H will be back from surgery on his soft palate and on the ward. People have been asking how I am feeling about it and my honest answer is that I don't know. Haven't a clue. What I am feeling changes so often it is somehow undefinable.

Am I scared? No.

Am I worried? Not really.

What then? I wish I knew.

Since coming back from holiday last Sunday I have felt unsettled. Nothing I could put my finger on exactly, but I found it hard to concentrate or be around people generally. The feeling increased throughout the week, especially in work, until today I started to force myself to be social. I didn't find it this difficult at the weekend, maybe I didn't have the thinking space.

I maintain that I am not scared or worried. H will be wonderfully looked after and will be fine, I know that. The best way I can describe it is a wish that we didn't have to do this any more. I understand how childish that must sound but its true. I wish we didn't have to. Its like a shadow following me around, the regret that H has to go through something else at a time when he is so happy and growing so beautifully. He is happy as he is. His three favourite things in life (eating, sucking his thumb, teething toys) will be severely restricted for the next few weeks. I remember the pain he was in last time, and although I am confident he wont be like that again, I still remember. Although the operation will be over, the recovery will not be. Maybe that is what I am dreading - the recovery.

There is also the guilt. Not just knowing that I am 'consenting' to this pain, but the other guilt I have - knowing that I can't imagine what some families in that hospital are going through. It feels wrong to feel like this about a relatively minor op. But I do.

We have a pre-op appointment by telephone tomorrow, and then I will start making a list of things I need to get. Socks for hands. Calpol. Gin. Caffeine to get me through the next few weeks if he stops sleeping again (what DO they put in anaesthetics these days?) Its one thing being a parental zombie all day, but quite another if you have to work through it.

He'll be ok.
I'll be ok.
We will all be ok.

But its ok not to be ok all the time and today no matter how I try to hide it, today, I'm not ok.