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| I hope my complexion looks decent under all those lights... |
June 21st.
This is the day I'm going in for surgery. The call came in Friday afternoon, and I had barely had a chance to process it all until tonight because I've been so busy doing awesome things like crashing street parties. (Okay, so it was a block away and we were invited by one of the organizers, but "crashing" sounds so much more bad ass, and befitting of someone who calls herself "The Maven of Mayhem.")
I had a c-section with Gutsy, and at some point in the months that followed, I developed a hernia at the incision site. This type of hernia has the unoriginal name of "incisional hernia." A Pulitzer prize to whoever came up with that one. I've had the darn thing for about eight years and have even carried another baby and had a second cesarean in that time without any complications. I pretty much ignored it for a long time because it didn't hurt and my layers of rotundness covered it up nicely. I've been sitting in that blissful place of denial about the lump in my stomach for a long time now, and I've been very okay with that.
The problem is that I've been losing weight since going gluten-free (okay, that's not much of a "problem" at my size, but let's not start getting all resentful and doing the eye-roll thing, ok?). The more weight I lose, the more noticeable and somewhat uncomfortable the hernia is becoming. It's no longer the quiet roommate who pays its rent on time and does the dishes, but rather the one who stumbles in drunk at 3 a.m. and doesn't clean up its own puke in the morning.
In the spirit of taking better care of my body, it is time for the darn thing to go.
I've been waiting for a surgical date for a few weeks. Not knowing was aggravating, but also kind of nice at the same time because it meant that the surgery wasn't quite real yet. It's not really happening until you put a circle on the calendar. Well, now I have the stupid circle, and the reality of it all is hitting me - hard. In just over two weeks, I will be put under general anesthesia for the first time in my life. I will be cut open from belly button to pubic bone, and I will become the bionic woman with the help of a mesh placed over my abdomen. Then, I'll be sewed back up.
I'll be in the hospital at least three days.
I will be in a significant amount of pain.
I will be at greater risk of infection than other types of hernia repairs because of the large incisional area and mesh.
I will be at greater risk of hernia recurrence (AKA epic surgical failure) because the area is already weakened due to two prior surgeries.
I am not terribly thrilled by any of this and stopping just short of drowning my stress in a bag of chocolate-covered almonds. (Putting on weight right now isn't going to help anything - or so I tell myself.)
On one hand, I'm glad to be having this done. I really should have done it a long time ago and I want to get it over with. On the other hand, I'm not terribly happy to have had a conversation with Dr. Google about the aforementioned statistics and risks. Ignorance probably would have been better on my part. But I'm a research junkie, and sometimes I just can't help myself. (Case in point: instead of simply reading breastfeeding books, I spent a year taking post-graduate-level lactation courses. True story.)
Overall, this is a low-risk procedure with a decent chance of success. The benefits far outweigh the risks, and I'm not questioning having the surgery done. I get that it could be worse, it could be scarier, it could be more life-threatening. I get that I'm probably going to be just fine.
BUT.
(Oh, you knew there was a "but" coming, didn't you? Don't look so surprised. If I wasn't so inwardly conflicted I wouldn't have a blog about my crappy parenting and such to begin with.)
If I only had to worry about myself I don't think I'd be terribly concerned. The odds are strongly stacked in my favour. But I have three little gremlins scuttling around the house who need their mom - and one in particular who has a host of sensory and processing issues. For Gutsy, stress is bad, change is bad, derailed routines and schedules are bad. And by bad I mean cataclysmically bad. My surgery is going to wreak havoc on Gutsy's emotional state, and I worry way more about him - and his reaction to everything being thrown up in the air - than I do about me and how I'll fare.
We have put a great deal of time and effort into Gutsy's routines. Without them, his world falls apart. It has taken months to find a morning schedule that works for him at this point in his life, and even longer to find a bedtime schedule that does the same. If done just right in just the right circumstances, we get through the day with no major meltdowns. All of this relies heavily on my participation in things. So by taking me out of the game, the game itself has to change. All balls will be thrown into the air, and my child who struggles to keep things together on the best of days is going to have to figure out how to catch them all - without my help.
Add to this that two days after surgery Gutsy finishes school for the year, and you have a perfect storm for adjustment problems. The spring-to-summer transition is already hard for him without further complications. It's going to be a difficult couple of weeks.
I have not shed a single tear about this surgery until tonight. It wasn't until I had to start thinking about how we're going to help Gutsy manage the stress of all this change that they started to flow. I cried for a good hour. Now my eyes hurt and I'm hungry (I think crying must eat up a lot of calories), but I am feeling a little better.
You might think I'm overreacting. And if you are, then you don't have a kid with special needs. And you are fortunate, and you should count your blessings that you have no idea why I'm going all emo about this.
Having surgery as a mom to a child with special needs amplifies the normal range of stress by piling on a whole bunch of added concerns. Those concerns are often so, well, concerning, that they make any worries about the surgery itself pale in comparison. Potholes in the road of life become sinkholes. There is so much more to plan, to arrange, to manage. It's a juggling act - and I'm a terrible juggler.
The next two weeks will be spent getting the house in order, stocking the cupboards with food, accepting and arranging offers for help post-surgery (there have been several because I have amazing friends and family on account of being an amazing human being who attracts these sorts) and making all the last-minute arrangements before I'm out of commission for awhile.
But the biggest challenge - my largest project - will be slowly trying to prepare my middle child for what's about to happen. It might seem like a few waves in the sea for most people, but this is likely going to be nothing short of stormy waters for Gutsy; a Bermuda Triangle of sorts. I'm hoping we can find a way of making this easier on him - and, in turn, on the rest of us.
And did I mention I'm going to have a big ugly scar on my belly? Fucking hell.