Anaesthetics and answered prayers

Morning, Lord. 

So here we are again.

Two days from now my little girl will be going into hospital again and she'll be having another operation. A different surgeon, this time, and a different operation involving the dissection of the posterior triangle of her neck (it says on the consent form) and the excision of a tumour which is wrapped around one nerve, right next to another and possibly involved with a third. Not the third one, please, Father God. The third one is the Phrenic nerve and it controls movement of the diaphragm, which means her breathing, and makes it a more serious proposition to go near it with a sharp scalpel. We'd just as soon opt out of any complications in that direction if that's all the same to you.

I can feel the knot in my stomach again. Recently I've been thinking I've not been doing too badly this time; less anxiety maybe. Perhaps all the stuff that's happened since the last operation has taught me something; or maybe my head is in a slightly better place this time. 

Or not.

Today I'm feeling heavy and weighed down by it all.  Yesterday we went to the pre-op appointment at Nightingale ward and so Katy had to find out about the new operation. Strangely out of the blue the other day she started talking about how sad she'd been when she'd needed all the dressing changes and Elizabeth piped up, 'Well, Katy, that's all over and you won't need to go to the hospital again, will she, Mummy?'  I replied that she did need to visit the hospital again and we had an appointment on Thursday, and Lizzie said, 'Never mind Katy, at least you won't have to have another operation.'

Oh dear. 

I couldn't think what to say and the moment passed as they saw something out of the car window that distracted them. I thought that another couple of days without the weight of it on her mind was a good thing. Later on in the week when we had to go for her pre-op ti was time to tell her and never has she looked so small and her eyes so big and welling up with tears.

I know how she feels. This time round I know how awful it is to walk away from her in the anaesthetic room. I know how awful it is to see her eyes roll back in her head as she goes to sleep. I know how awful the wait is until they tell us we can go and see her in the recovery room and this time it will potentially be five times as long.

Oh Lord, take care of my daughter because I love her so much. Please give her back to me healed of this illness and still the same little girl as she is now. Please protect her from anything harmful; accidents, mistakes, miscalculations or problems. Please wrap her in your Holy Spirit like the Ready Brek man so that nothing can harm her physically, emotionally, developmentally or spiritually. Or any other way.

It was funny, the things that she immediately thought about when she learned she was going to have another operation. It wasn't the anaesthetic, or even the being sick afterwards that scared her, it was the sticky electrodes on her chest that were hard to remove. It was the plaster on her hand to keep the anaesthetic cream in place so they could put in the cannula, not the cannula itself. On the plus side, she is still liking the idea of a ride on a bed (to theatre - only a child could appreciate the journey and block out the destination. We so often do the opposite, don't we?) and bizarrely, she still likes the idea of hospital toast.

As the Americans say, go figure.

It's hard that as a parent you can't make all the bad go away. It's hard when you want to say that you won't let anyone hurt them that all you can promise is to be there with them when it does hurt. Do you find it that way? Is this the whole life-thing? That it's in our interests for life to hurt us and while you can't (don't) stop it, you promise to be there with us? There are masses of analogies available to me as I think about my lovely daughters and the turns life takes; probably more than I care to explore at the moment. The only thing I want at the moment is for Katy to be well again and free from this thing that's been plaguing us since we found it in March.

I'm trying to block out the voices that tell me what might go wrong with this operation. I'm trying to drown them out with positives. You love Katy more than I do (so that's going some) and you don't want her to be hurt either. It's like sitting on a plane at 37,000ft and experiencing turbulence, having a panic and then thinking that the pilot has a vested interest in getting us there safely too. The surgeon doesn't want anything bad to happen to Katy, even if it is for a different set of reasons.

Other stuff is happening, Father. Financial worries, health worries, those unanswered questions about the future that I started the year with are still unanswered. I suppose you want it that way. I suppose there's a reason for it all.  I know that there hasn't been another year in my life where I've learned so much, been through so much, heard from you so much and longed for so much. Emotionally and spiritually I've been in high places and low places. Please slow it down for a little while Lord, and let me get my breath back, hey?

Keep talking, Father, and help me to listen. Keep reminding me of your Word when I need it most. This morning I woke up worrying and asking questions about the future and a friend sent me a text:

'Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on  your own understanding.'

Proverbs 3:5

I can't work it out myself. I don't have the answers and no amount of reading books or surfing the internet or indeed talking to people who are wiser than me will ultimately help. I need to learn to give it to you.

The other day I had a call from Katy's consultant to tell me that he needed to move the operation from the planned date (Tuesday) because of two urgent cases that needed doing. He offered me either a date that would mean we'd have to cancel our much-looked-forward-to holiday in a couple of weeks or Katy would miss her first two weeks at Big School.  I didn't like either of these two options and had a panic.  I told him that I understood the need to move Kate's surgery, but was there not a third option? He said he would find one. I heard him riffling through his diary pages as he hung up.

I spent that evening tearful and worried casting gloom everywhere and panicking myself and everyone round me. I rang Bryan in London and it was a far from positive conversation as we didn't agree on the best course of action. I unloaded to my Mum, then made some phone calls, then a friend came round to talk me down and discuss the situation with me.  Just before bedtime, I sent an email asking the church family to pray about it, and then, last of all, as I lay in bed with the light off, I gave it to you.

Why didn't I do that earlier? I need to learn from this, I really do, because in the morning I took a phone call from the doctor's secretary to say that the op had been moved forward by one day only. Was that alright?

Or course it was. It was the third option. A bed had been found for Katy where supposedly there was no bed available. You sorted it out. And I could have saved myself a whole evening's tears and arguments and worry and heartache if only I had cut to the chase and trusted you first, before I shared my anxiety with a whole host of people. I cast around for someone to support me and comfort me and you were last on the list. I'm sorry.

Even so, you answered my prayer. Even though I tried everything I could think of before I tried you, you still answered my prayer. It might not have huge repercussions if you hadn't answered it; indeed I know that there are thousands of families facing more awful dilemmas than a lost holiday or missed start of school, but you are loving and merciful and you answered my prayer.

You are trustworthy and you are good. You love me. You love Katy. You love Elizabeth who is worried about her little sister and you love Bryan who is trying to take care of all of us and be responsible for so much more besides.

Help me to trust you. And in exchange for trusting you, then I will know your peace. When I lean on my own understanding, all I find is anxiety and confusion. I'd rather have the peace, but being human and perverse, even though I know the way to peace I still take a detour through chaos. I'd like to change this, please.

Hold my hand as I hold Katy's little hand, Father God. I know you won't let me down.

I don't know where you're taking me

Father God, I have no idea what you are doing in my life this year - all I know is that the year is barely half over and I have been to the top and bottom of my emotions already. I have been in wonder at the things I'm learning and had glimpses of you that I will treasure for a lifetime. I have been lower than I've ever been and felt so lost and so cut off from you that it was hard to breathe and I didn't have the first idea what to do. 

I am on some sort of fast-track to a different place and I don't know where you're taking me. All I know is that I am hanging on and I have more faith that you will take care of me than I had at the beginning of the year. I am not as wildly enthusiastic as I was a few months ago; more cautious. I am tired but I am not defeated; I am humbled and I have a better idea of the extent of the forgiveness that I have received. It's only a step forward - I have such a long way to go. 

So all this time life goes on. We saw Katy's consultant the other day and he's talked to the other consultants involved in her treatment and they've decided that the best way to proceed now is to operate again to try and excise all of her bump.  Since it's come back and they've finally made a diagnosis they've been talking about several possible treatment plans and every route to take has had potential problems. Long term drug therapy might result in damage to Kate's eyes or to her liver. Further surgery is problematic as her tumour is wrapped around one nerve and close to another two, but this is the preferred option. 

So they've told us that her surgery might take 2-3 hours and to be prepared for a hospital stay of 3-4 days. It's more involved than last time. If it recurs I'm told that there's no option but to explore drug therapy with or without its side effects. 

Lord, here I go again.  My little girl is going to have another ride on a bed, another needle in her hand, another anaesthetic, more painkillers, more dressing changes. This time the consultant tells me that she won't need to have a wound packed as he'll close it with a line of sutures.  He tells me that she won't need to have her stitches out as he'll use dissolvable ones. He tells me that it'll heal quickly because the bacterium will have gone. After all, her surgery was on 3 June and it's now the end of July and her last surgical wound hasn't healed yet because of the little bug that has beset us.

I can feel a knot in my stomach when I talk about it although her surgery date is still a couple of weeks away. I can feel myself start to get anxious and I remember the anguish of walking away from her as she slept in the anaesthetic room all over again. I'm not looking forward to it. Please take care of my Katy, Father God. I know that you will. I know that you will watch over her and over all of us. Any chance that you could do something miraculous before then so that surgery isn't necessary? 

How do I find the faith that can move mountains, so that such faith might move her bump?

So life goes on. We're in London at the moment and tomorrow we're going to have a day in London; the children are so excited. Katy doesn't need her horrid medicines any more so that's a good thing. We're going to meet up with some family and go to see dinosaurs in the museums, and see where Daddy works and go to the park and maybe a ride on the river. The children just love being down here. It's almost worth the long drive down the M1 with the children asking, 'Are we nearly there yet?' every thirty seconds. 

Are we nearly there yet, Lord?  Am I nearly there?  I can't tell because I don't know where you're taking me. I might have a long way to go or I might be nearly there; I guess there's a long way because every day I have a better idea of how far I am from the person you want me to be.

But I'm learning. I want to move on. I still want to be some use to you. It's joyful and painful and amazing. Every time you bring me through something, I understand a tiny bit more. Only a tiny bit. Another bit of the jigsaw is in place - but it's a big, big puzzle, isn't it?  A lifetime's work. 

I can't even begin to see the picture yet, I know that you can, and I know that if you've made it, then it's a beautiful, matchless, awe-inspiring picture. 

It's a privilege to be part of it.