For Your Own Good...I Hope

Tomorrow morning, my daughter Ella will undergo a relatively simple surgical procedure to have her adenoids taken out. Apparently, they are just this side of Congress in terms of causing problems for people like my daughter. The doctor says the procedure will take only a few minutes at the most, will leave a relatively short recovery time, and should make my daughter's quality of life increase about 200%.

But they all say that, don't they?

I've heard from many people that the surgery is nothing.

"I was out and about that same afternoon with my kid. She wanted to eat at McDonald's."

"Oh, we were shopping for shoes less than an hour after surgery. It was nothing."

"Dude, seven minutes after we were out of recovery, my kid felt so great she started singing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' and was signed to a recording contract by an A&R guy who just happened to be at the doctor's to have his inner ear checked. Best day our lives. Plus, her album drops on October 15th. We've got Snoop-Dog!"

OK - that last one might be an exaggeration. But still, the general consensus is Why freak out, dude? Your kid will be fine.

In my head, I know this. The surgery is so simple the doctors can do it in their sleep. The recovery is so easy, I'll enjoy eating all of the leftover Jell-O. I know this because I've read the literature, heard the experts, and heard it again from friends and family.

But in my heart?

I'm freaking out. Part of it comes from our past. We're the 1-percenters you always hear about but never really think anything of. You know, when the doc is giving you the boilerplate spiel about how "only 1% of all patients suffer from any kind of severe setbacks..." or "less than 1% of people who have anesthesia swell up like fugu and see purple spots." If you've ever heard a doctor give you the legal CYB, you know what I'm talking about.

Well, that's us. If anyone is going to sprout goat horns and trot across the surgical center because of some minute adverse reaction to anesthesia, it'll be my kid. If one surgery in a thousand has some grave operator error, where the doc somehow accidentally cauterizes the patient's sinuses shut, it'll be us. That's just the way it's been in our history, medically speaking.

So you can see why I'm a little on edge.

In the end, we'll get up, drink a buttload of coffee and drive out to Scottish Rite tomorrow, and everything will go fine. Ella will have no problems with the intubation, there'll be no adverse effects from the anesthesia, she'll have no bleeding or other abnormal response to the surgery, and I'll move on to my next nervous breakdown, schedule for the same day she starts kindergarten.

But tonight, I'm sitting here, my heart pounding in my chest, worried that I've chosen something I think is for her own good but can't guarantee. I'm hoping against hope that this brings relief instead of trauma, healing instead of hurting, and a better future instead of one that seems shrouded in clouds right now. It's a battle of faith: will I or will I not trust God with the life of my daughter?

It's gonna be a long night.