I have been to children's hospitals before. It's like everyone is walking around with poker faces on. I try to hand out smiles to every child I pass. You know every parent is at heightened levels of pain or grief and I always wish there was something I could do for each of them to make it better. Yesterday I walked into the doors holding my son's hand for his very own appointment. It was a much different feeling.
I had the poker face on I knew I would carry, only my insides felt like an open wound. Every corner I turned and face I saw made me bleed on the inside a little more. I hoped we would be walking out with no need to schedule another appointment. I ached for those around me who were there for routine visits, causes I would never know.
With a 5 minute visit the surgeon determines my 3 year young boy needs a one-time surgery to remove a hydrocele. He slides his finger across my baby's milky white skin to show me where the incision will be as if he is talking about a steak. It will be an outpatient surgery, home the same day. Zane lays there still and happy and unaware. I keep my stone face as panic! fear! blank! flashes in my head.
The doctor escorts us out, handing my little boy some stickers as if that makes it all better. The conversation had gone from surgery to stickers within minutes and we are on our way. I walk out of the office and back into the land of happily painted walls and butterflies hanging from the ceiling trying to mask the fact that a lot of pain and hurt happens here. Well beyond anything I may ever experience with my own children. I am completely aware there is a cancer wing I may, hopefully, never see my children in during my lifetime. It doesn't remove the feeling of helplessness I still feel for my little guy and the sutures that will protrude from his perfect skin.
I guess it's this big dream we have when they are born, that we can protect them from anything and everything no matter what it takes. Pain, imperfection, hurt feelings, poor health, bleeding, all of it. We want to be the magical make-it-all-go-away person we think we get to be. But it's not so. We are the cheering squad for them, the nurturing giver when things are not right, when there is blood and when there are sutures.
Although it's a minor surgery in the grand scheme of things, I would still do anything I could to fix it myself without him needing any procedure. If it meant collecting all the stars in the sky I would find a way to do it. If I could gather all the clouds to even compensate for the suckiness of it, I would have them ready in a bag when he wakes up to recover so I could say, "Look, I know this sucks and you hurt, but here are all the clouds in the world I gathered for you while you slept and go ahead and roll around in them, they are all yours!"
I know he will be fine and my passionate emotions get the best of me and probably make many roll their eyes thinking 'here she goes again overly agonizing over something simple'. But my baby's skin getting cut open for any reason feels like my insides are being clawed out. And I would never wish this feeling on my worst enemy.
