Surgery (Part I)

Last Tuesday was kind of a typical day with Jack. His school was closed all week, so we went to the beach in the morning. Emily and I had been going back and forth on whether we should see a doctor for what appeared to be an allergic reaction/rash he had. It showed up occasionally....didn't bother him, but it was noticeable. We thought it might be his sunblock, or strawberries, or prickly heat...whatever. Anyway, at the beach that morning it seemed worse, so I made an appointment for that afternoon.

We went to the doctor, and while she was checking him all over, she noticed a swelling in the groin area. She thought it was a hernia, but wanted him to see another doctor to be sure. She kind of shrugged off the allergies ("Keep a food diary," she suggested, "Or try Benadryl if it itches") which was just as well, since I'd totally forgotten about it too. Especially when she said if it WAS a hernia, he'd need surgery. All righty then.

We drove home, and I was kind of teary. My son needs surgery. Pretty scary. I was torn between regretting the visit which had dumped this in our lap and feeling lucky that we'd found out this way, and not -- as the doctor had said -- him waking up crying and in pain, which might have happened down the road. He, of course, was acting perfectly normal, wanting to play with the trains in the doctor's office, smiling and laughing during the examination, etc.

She had said she hoped the doctor would be able to see us to confirm her diagnosis by next week. By some weird coincidence, the doctor she recommended, one of the leading pediatric surgeons in Westchester County, turned out to be our brother in law's Dad's...well, kind of confusing, but he was Ian's Dad's cousin's husband. Or something like that. And he'd had Thanksgiving dinner with us. As a result, we were able to see him the next day, and yup, it was a hernia. Surgery scheduled for the following Tuesday. This office visit, Jack's second in two days, wasn't as much fun for him. Although he enjoyed playing with the toys (a little kitchen, some trucks, so on and so forth), he was a little wary of the doctor, who he didn't remember, of course, and the whole place was unfamiliar. Plus it was his naptime.

Anyhoo, we drove home, and that night Jack got ice cream, gummi bears, pretty much whatever he wanted.

There were some tears (ours, not his).

There were the various explanations to friends and family members (turns out it's the most common surgery performed on children, and even Emily's boss's daughter had had it done, by our surgeon, too!).

And on Saturday afternoon we went over to the neighbor's and Jack played with their son Max, and we told them everything, and we watched the kids play. And it was nice, you know, because it felt like the kind of thing that Jack should be doing -- not sitting around our house while we fretted and worried about him, worried about him suddenly saying his groin hurt or something.

And that's when we really worried about him having surgery. Because everything was supposed to be fine, but all I could think about was what if it wasn't.

So the next few days we basically spoiled him rotten.

To be continued.