29.1.10

Jake’s reversal has been confirmed for 5th February. Posted this on Facebook and received congratulations. One person even said Lush. I’m not ungrateful and I know people mean well, but congratulations just seem entirely inappropriate right now. But then again, maybe that’s what I get for using Facebook to talk about such things. Still, I say save the congratulations for when he comes out, completely recovered and well. Not for now, when we know what’s ahead, what we still have to go through, what he has to go through. We will hope for the best but prepare for the unpredictable.
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I’ve never had surgery, but for Jake, this will be the second time. He’s only 18 months old. We are told that in the best case scenario, he will be in hospital for a week. I am fully expecting it will be longer.  This may sound negative, but we never expected what happened to Jake to happen in the first place.

We also met other patients on Jake’s ward when he was recovering last time - patients who had to keep returning to hospital throughout their young lives for problems that kept occurring despite surgery. We even met someone whose troubles began after her stoma was reversed. She’d been in hospital for months and the surgeons were still clueless as to why.

And then there’s the fear that we’ll lose Jake completely. It shouldn’t happen, it’s a routine procedure and he should come through it fine, but a lot of things should never happen. Lately I’ve been hearing too much about children dying. I fear it will happen to Jake. I know it’s not rational, but I’ve spent most of my life losing people, as if I was careless enough to let them slip through my fingers. 

If I heard someone else say this, I’d be telling them not to worry, that of course it won’t happen. That it’s important to stay positive and look forward to Jake’s recovery and life after that. And I will. But for now, this is what I'm feeling. And I just need to say it.