“Minor”

Austin is having surgery this Friday at Akron Children’s. Surgeries, actually, two procedures rolled into one. They’re minor and non-cancer related. Just a long overdue tonsillectomy and finger repair. You may remember that his swollen tonsils (besides keeping us all up at night) prevented him from being sedated for his May MRI, requiring us to go through the surgical department for full-blown anesthesia. While we hope he’ll have no future reasons to be sedated, we also realize that’s pretty unlikely given his history (and his future). And the poor finger … well, that thing’s been bothering him for more than a year as it’s now clawed and  unable to fully straighten. The lovely surgeons at Akron have coordinated their schedules so he only has to have one surgery, which I think (I lose track of these things) brings him up to eleven.

The interesting thing about this time is how nervous Austin is. He’s been so young every time in the past that all these crazy things happened to him without his full (or at times, even partial) understanding. This time, he is well aware and asking many many questions: “What day are we going again? Is tomorrow when we leave at 6 in the morning? How long will I have a cast on my hand?” I don’t think he’ll have a cast on his hand at all, more like a bandage, but he’s definitely concerned about not being able to write at school. His teacher has assured me this won’t be an issue (he is in kindergarten, after all), but Austin is a participator — he joins in to any and every activity possible with his full self, so standing on the sidelines will be tough. Especially when it comes to missing his regular Wednesday and Saturday tumbling classes. I already have to set silly rules to contain the near constant acrobatics, like no cartwheeling while crossing the street and no flips after 8pm (because … you gotta stop sometime!). Of course, I think it’ll probably be his tonsils that cause the most pain, but that seems a bit too abstract for him to worry about. And I don’t exactly want to encourage him to fear something else!

So we go in early Friday morning and will stay over that night. Of course these are both typically out-patient procedures but since Austin is in no way typical, they want to observe his blood pressure and hydration. This will be our first overnight in the hospital in a record-breaking two-and-a-half years, since an unexpected fever in August of 2010. I just reread that old post, “Interruption,” not quite remembering the circumstances of that particular stay. Its closing lines were right on. It finally seems that, despite swollen tonsils or Franken-fingers, we have indeed made it safely to that wide-open future I could only hope for back then. We are living it.