It has officially been 10 days since Wyatt's T&A.
When I was retrieved from the waiting room after his surgery, I was met in the hospital hallway by his doctor. She grinned at me, thrust a stack of papers stapled to a Ziploc bag of post-surgery 'goodies' into my hands and said, "Are you ready for the next ten days?"
Something in her eyes told me that my answer was definitely 'no'.
"It's brutal," she confided. "Pure misery," she said with a consoling grimace. "But if you can get through it, it will be so worth it."
So I steeled myself for two weeks of brutal, pure misery. I'd have to amp up the patience. I'd have to ignore all other responsibilities and just be Mom of Recovering Monkeyfish (and siblings). I tried to mentally prep for sleep deprivation and the exhaustion that would come with two weeks of fighting to get a very unhappy 3-year old to take his medicine (and cope with the unpleasant side-effects), drink something, eat something, sleep!
Day 10 rested on the other side of the ordeal; my beacon through the pressing madness that I was assured I was in for. If I could just make it to day 10!
And so - this morning as I was marking his morning glass of milk on his drink chart (who knew getting a recovering T&A kid to drink 8oz of liquid 8x/day was such an impossible feat?! I mean, we tried everything - it was like we had CHOCOLATE MILK ON TAP, for heaven's sake!) and made an X in the first box next to the 'Day 10' label - I did a little congratulatory dance in my head.
But it was a much different dance than I had been expecting to do ten days ago. This was the dance of reaching day 10 with no sign of the brutality. No hint of the pure misery that I was so enthusiastically guaranteed by his doctor, friends, the Internet.
Rough patches, but no desperation.
Stubbornness, but no grisly battles.
mole hills, but no mountains.
He would even check with me, "Is it time to take my medicine, mom?" And I would simply fill the syringe with the sticky red stuff, and he would take it from there. He has become a pro at pushing the medicine through the syringe into his own mouth.
He hasn't wanted to eat or drink as much (except for fruit snacks, turkey and raisins, which I have been keeping in steady supply for him), and has been a bit clumsy - falling off of stuff, tripping over things, crashing into doorways and the like - but when the side effects of the codeine should have been extreme dizziness, nausea and constipation - I can't help but feel like the bruises on his legs are lucky.
In the middle of the night, he sometimes wakes up crying from the pain in is throat - usually about the time for his next dose of drugs - and it's a battle to get him to take his medicine (or do anything, really) when it's 3am and he's tired and hurting. But I've read that the pain IS the worst at night when you've been sleeping, and your throat dries out. I read that it feels like you have broken glass jammed back there. I would cry, too.
Well, let's be honest. I'd cry a lot more and behave a lot worse than my little Monkeyfish has.
I'm very proud of him.
And I've been enjoying the surplus of Popsicles, too.
So - we've reached day 10. We're out of the woods. We're not 100%, yet. He is not completely healed - but will be within another week.
And life goes back to normal.
(whatever that means)
Day 10 of the Dreaded "Next Ten Days"
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