Elaina

February 15

One year ago today I woke up nauseous and filled with dread; my sweet Elaina had 3 surgeries/procedures (tonsils, adenoids, ear tubes) that morning. They were all very common, typically had minimal complications, and all 3 only took an hour. But she was MY daughter so none of that mattered.

I called the hospital’s nurse line several times before the surgery to make sure they knew about her anxiety. I repeatedly discussed her fear of falling asleep because she thought she would die (which was a valid fear since her enlarged tonsils were blocking her airflow when she was sleeping and quite literally choking her). I said she would be likely be hysterical if they told her what they told most children – “the medicine will just make you sleep!”. They reassured me I could go back to anesthesia with her and leave after she fell asleep.

When the time came, they informed my husband and I that neither of us could go with her; the parents often freak out more than the kids. I explained she had an unwarranted, but incredibly real, fear of death. I promised to remain calm. I just wanted to hold her hand until she was asleep. I told them I handled her running toward me, covered in her own blood after being hit in the eye with a baseball bat, just fine. If I could handle that, I could calmly talk to her as she fell asleep, thankyouverymuch.

Please. This was a piece of cake in comparison.

But they held firm and I didn’t put up much of a fight; I didn’t want to upset Elaina.

And then moments later, there we were, standing in front of the door to the waiting room at the beginning of a seemingly never-ending hallway they would take her through. I kissed her goodbye and said I couldn’t wait to see how many baskets she would score when she could *really* breathe (her enlarged adenoids blocked 80% off her nasal passages). She giggled nervously. My husband kissed her, and we just stood there for a split second.

I didn’t want to let her go. They didn’t love her like I did! How could they possibly care for her if they didn’t even know her? How could they possibly help her without knowing that she lived for basketball and hated sitting still, or that she loved chili just as much as ice cream?

And just like that, in that split second, I realized that my all-encompassing, and at times like this suffocating, love was not the key that would unlock her nasal passages, throat, and ear canals. Those doctors, the ones who wouldn’t remember her name once her chart was no longer in front of them, they had the skill set to fix her, the one for which we had spent the last year searching.

Love didn’t matter one-diddly-squat at the moment.

But that was all I had to offer her.

So I smiled and waved as the nurse ripped my heart right out of my chest and rolled it down that long hallway, masquerading as an adorable 8 year old.

A year later she is a completely different kid. She can sleep now, she can breathe, and she hasn’t had any fluid on her ears, let alone the chronic double ear infections that were causing mild hearing loss.

Sometimes our own knowledge and skills are irrelevant. Sometimes near-strangers can change our life. Watch for the people with solutions; lean on their experience, learn from their wisdom, and then get the heck out of their way when they offer to get to work.