Last week I took my daughter into hospital for a test that had to be done under general anaesthetic. All in the name of searching for a diagnosis to answer the questions I’d been pursuing answers to since she was a baby. Mothers Instinct. Searching for an explanation. A label. A something that won’t go away. A something that means something isn’t fixable. Something I as a mother can’t fix. A something that means she might have to face some challenges that I never had to face, her brother never has to face, and her friends won’t have to face. The logical part of my brain reminds me it’s not life threatening and the impact on her life in the big scheme of things is minimal. I know that how she approaches her challenges and how she’s approached them up until this point in her life has largely depended on my attitude. She’s strong and resilient and has been taught to love and accept herself. She’s been taught to keep trying and do her best. And that she does.
So here we are at the hospital. Doing what we need to do to find the answer.
We meet with the anaesthetist, who reels off the risks and worse case scenarios and I know I can’t go there because if I do I’ll completely lose it so instead I hang onto how it turns out for the norm. But one in one hundred thousand isn’t the norm and yet I’m sitting where I’m sitting. I’m reassured they’re using different drugs because the normal ones could possibly cause a fatal reaction. The mere thought gives me goose bumps and I sign and pray and pray and pray. All rational thoughts have left my mind but I put my happy face on and hold that little hand as I share my excitement about wristbands, angel cream and hospital fairies.
As the penguin milk drips in and the imminent cry is about to begin, my child is suddenly asleep and I realise I have absolutely no control over what’s going to happen next. She’s left in the hands of a team of others and I hope they’re having a good day.
In that moment I feel for every single mother out there who has lost a child as I pray to God that today won’t be the day I lose mine. The chances are slim but I still feel like I’m playing a game of Russian roulette.
I fill the hour with mundane chatter and see my partner in life almost cry for the second time in ten years as I describe how I handed over the control. In the silence we both know what the other is thinking, hoping, praying.
The nurse calls my daughter’s name and I jump up from the chair almost bowling her over in a race to see my child. And there she is, innocently sucking on a lemonade icy pole in her white gown, groggy and alive and ok. She’s ok? She’s really ok? I touch her in a way I haven’t touched her since she was born, when she was new and fragile, checking that all her pieces are intact and that she’s working. She can wriggle her toes and I feel like I can breathe again. The surgeon tells us it all went well and he walks away. I think to myself that if ever there was a walking, living breathing angel, it might take the form of this doctor who didn’t save the life of my child today but returned her to me safely.
And now to wait for the results.
