Fear

Here it is two days before surgery and I'm back in this place, this awful frame of mind that I was so glad to be rid of six months ago. I've tried hard not to lapse into self-pity and negativity throughout this blog. This is, after all, Emily's problem and not mine. I wasn't born with the cleft. I didn't have to wear the NAM. I didn't wake up, bleary and in pain, wondering why my mouth had suddenly changed. This is primarily a story of optimism. Emily is happy. She is healthy. She'll be ok.

But as a parent, it's so hard to see your child suffer and I'm afraid. I fear the look in her eyes when she wakes up in recovery, with arm restraints on and blood dripping down her cheek. I'm terrified of the crying that I won't be able to stop. The kind that comes at 3 am, in a pediatric hospital room with an i.v. connected to her foot, a panel of blinking lights and buttons and the broken breathing of other anxious parents just trying to make it through until morning.

I hate that I can't take her place in that bed. I hate that she'll never understand, not ever, how hard it's going to be for me to hold her and not be able to soothe the hurt. Will she ever trust me again? And I fear the improbable. That tiny chance that she'll never wake up from anesthesia. That the trip to the operating room, with her in my arms, will be the last time I feel her warm and alive.

No, this isn't a life and death procedure. But for me it's as huge as the sky, as impossible to climb as Mount Everest, as heart breaking as losing my own soul. There's nothing I can do but be strong for her, but I'm only human and this is my most desperate hour.