Six months...

**Disclaimer - This post is more than likely going to be filled with not so happy stuff dredged up from the depths of my brain. If reading about other peoples psychosis isn't your thing, then you don't have to go any further. It's ok, I don't mind, and no one will think any less of you. :)


Tiana's done with her first adjustment. It went really well, and it's nice to see her nearly straight again. There was very little pain this time around, within a few days she was mostly back to normal. She's still a little stiff, but hasn't needed so much as an Advil since the day of the surgery.

Overall a piece of cake... No sweat... Right? Yea right...

This whole thing has caused me to become very introspective, examining myself, what kind of person I am, what kind of parent I am, and more importantly, what the hell is wrong with me.

Ok, I've been sitting here staring at my screen wondering where to go from here without sounding like a whiny twit. That's really not how I want to come across. My idea isn't to try and gain sympathy, or even understanding, it's merely journaling therapy for me, getting it out of my head so that maybe I can walk down a path of normalcy for a little while. I could do a private journal I guess, but what fun would that be, and maybe there's someone out there like me (fat chance I know) who might get a little comfort in knowing that they're not the only nut job on the planet.

So onward bravely I wander, damn the torpedoes, and if I whine then so be it.

In the weeks leading up to Tiana's surgery I often wondered if I'd deal with this differently if I didn't have this lovely serotonin imbalance in my brain. The lengthening is supposed to be a pretty minor surgery, and really it is, so why doesn't that comfort me? Why do I look at my child like this may be the last time I see her whole? Why do I count the days with dread? Why do I see these vivid pictures flash through my head, pictures of my baby in a wheel chair, or the nightmare images of her in a coffin.

What the hell is wrong with me?

There's some comfort in knowing that while I may be a little father into the deep end than others, I'm not all that alone out there.

You can see it in the eyes of the other parents at Shriners, that terrible fear that no matter how minor the surgery, your child could easily become a statistic. Sure, the odds are in your favor that everything will turn out alright, but the odds were in my favor that I'd have a normal healthy baby without any muscular-skeletal defects too. The parents sitting in the waiting room, or out in the smoker's corner, have learned not to play the odds because sometimes you lose. We don't have the option of bowing out of this messed up game when we've had enough, or wagering just a little bit to play it safe. Once we're in, we have to stay until it's done, and with each hand we have to bet it all... When we lose, we lose everything.

That's what's doing me in right now, and for the last couple of weeks... I didn't want to play this game, I was forced into it. Now that I'm here, I can't stop it, can't back off, I have to see it to the end, no matter how it plays out.

I've had enough... I want to quit, I can't do this anymore. I want whatever twist of fate, nature, or God that made my kid this way to fix her with and be done with it. I don't mind that she's not the perfect healthy baby that I dreamed of; I can live with her being broken, but I can't live without her. I don't care anymore if it's character building, I don't care if we'll come out on the other side of this stronger, better people. I want to be able to take my kids health for granted, I want the fear to go away. I want to lay down in bed at night and not count the days to the next time my child will have to go under the knife. I just want it to stop... Is that too much to ask?

You may be sitting there thinking that in the grand scheme of things I have it easy. Life could have been a lot worse for me and my kid. She could have been born with a thousand other problems that would make things a lot harder, a lot scarier. Trust me, you don't need to tell me this. I've met the kids that are worse off, seen their parents chain smoking while they're in surgery, talked to them in an effort to figure out how they get through it all. I hold them in awe for their strength, but this isn't a road they chose either. Most, just like me, are hiding in a locked bathroom every once in awhile, crying while the shower's running, and railing against this long hard path they have to walk and the fates that put them there. We keep ourselves together because it's what our kids need us to do, but that doesn't mean we like it. They don't begrudge me my feelings, they understand it, and as we sit together watching the clock, we all know that fear cannot be contained by how minor a doctor ranks a procedure. When you've already lost to good odds, you know that something as simple as a tonsillectomy can go terribly, horribly wrong.

So I live a diet of avoidance and repression... Tamp it down, don't let it control you, don't let your twisted imagination gain the upper hand. As life moves inevitably forward, and the surgeries get closer I push everything into the back of my mind, emotion, deadlines, anything that may cause me the tiniest amount of stress. Because one little crack will cause the dam to break, and then I'm in the bathroom with the shower running again.

Some people in my life are finding they're having a hard time dealing with the month or so that I'm completely unavailable to them in any way. They may talk to me, but I'm emotionally distant, unresponsive, and pretty much in a comatose state. My body may be moving, but the mind is in another place. To these people that I love dearly, and who I know love me back, I can only say I'm sorry. If I could be any different, if I could walk away from this, if I could be a normal person dealing with life in a normal way I would do it in a heart beat.

I can say this now, share these feelings, because Tiana's a week out of surgery and I have six months until the fear and anxiety grip my life. Three weeks or so before her next surgery I'll be repressing again and you'll be lucky to get anything more than "I'm fine" out of me. No amount of Lexapro is probably gonna change that. Sorry...

Anyway... I wanted to say more today, but it's almost time for me to run. Maybe tomorrow I'll share the rest. There is more to this story, this unsolicited glimpse into my psyche, but this is probably enough for anyone to digest in one day.

Hugs,
Anne