The ear surgery saga

In the grand scheme of all possible health issues M could be dealing with, I am thankful it is this.

I had this same surgery when I was a child.

Three weeks ago, he had medial tympanoplasty, which is a complicated way of saying he had muscle removed from behind his ear and placed over the hole in his eardrum.

He has had a hole in his eardrum for nearly five years, but until this surgery, I didn't realize that the hole was 70% of his eardrum.

At least once a year, we go to the audiologist for specially-made plugs to prevent water from getting into his ear. He has failed hearing tests for years, but we have always anticipated that once the hole was closed, his hearing would return to normal (or very close to normal).

In these three post-surgical weeks, we have seen his ENT three times and will see him again on Monday. M is on his second antibiotic. He has had the graft poked to settle it down and remove pus behind it. He has had boric acid powder puffed into his ear. His eardrum is now purple because Dr. B put gentian violet on it to keep yeast at bay.

And I know that this is small beans compared to a child who has cancer or a heart condition or so many other issues that so many families contend with.

Yesterday, I got the bill from his surgery, which again places me in the position where I am at once thankful that it is a minor issue and horrified at the expense, not only because it is a sizable chunk of change but because my mind goes there.

There is where I think about what could be....another surgery if this graft doesn't hold, all the myriad health conditions we haven't had but could have, all the families whose children have chronic major illnesses who see these types of insurance bills on the regular.

It feels like it could break me sometimes.

Yesterday, I asked Dr. B when he would feel confident that the graft is gonna hold.
Actually what I asked was, "When will I be able to stop taking extra half-doses of antidepressants over this?"
Those are identical questions, really.

Six weeks was his answer.
We are halfway there.

You ain't grown

This statement comes out of my mouth on the regular...with my children and when I substitute teach.

Now, I realize that children push boundaries. That is what they are supposed to do.
But as an adult, I know that my job is to hold the boundaries in place.
This does a number of things for the child.
It reminds her or him that I am consistent, that some things in the world are consistent.
It reminds them of the power of consistency.
It makes them feel secure and safe.
It helps them regulate themselves.

It is also a nice preview of what being an actual adult is like.
Adulthood is not about getting to do whatever the hell you want.
I do not usually ever get to do whatever the hell I want.
I get to do more things than I got to do as a child, like eat 3 cookies at once if I choose to and stay up later than I should.
I often wish I had someone regulating me better than I regulate myself.
To allow children to think that adulthood allows them absolute freedom is a cruel trick.

So when my own children buck me or when students buck me, I determine if it is an issue that I can ignore or if it is an issue that requires me to remind them that "they ain't grown."

Many, many, many issues do not reguire the big bazookas.
But sometimes, I have to open my mouth and allow my own mother to come on out and give my child a little what-for.

G frequently needs reminding that he ain't grown, but the other two usually don't.

Yesterday, however, N forgot.
She forgot that she doesn't have a job, doesn't contribute to the household or her phone bill.
She forgot that she doesn't have wheels to get her anywhere.
She forgot that she is 14 and most certainly ain't grown.
So I had to remind her.

She wasn't happy.
AND I WASN'T HAPPY.
Providing structure and consistency is much, much, much, much harder than just letting a child do what she/he wants.
Walking away and allowing the structure to cave is easier than standing around, holding the danged thing up while the kid pushes against it over and over again.

But today, N was back to her old normally responsible self.
I had emailed her teacher last night. This is part of what I said:

Since she is providing me zero information, could you please let me know whether this work was from her absence, whether she is still able to turn it in, and if so, what the penalty is for late work?

Also, should I murder her? (Because that is what I feel like doing.) ;)

Her teacher emailed me this morning to let me know the issue had been resolved because N had returned to her normally responsible self and thanked me for being an awesome mom. She also thanked me for offering to kill N but said she preferred I didn't because she is fond of my daughter.

If this is what being an awesome mom is like, it really, totally blows.
But the alternative---a kid who does what she/he wants, with attitude, without respect, without limits-
blows much, much more.

I'm a terrible pray-er

I have written before that I feel wildly uncomfortable when people in the extremely early stages of emotion take it to social media.

And I am not a person who easily feels wildly uncomfortable, but there is just so much rawness in what they post. It doesn't really matter if the early emotion is joy or pain.

If the emotion is the early stage of love or a new job, it is off-the-chain ecstatic, and I am waiting for them to come back to planet Earth where the person they adore is human again and prone to frailty. Or the job gets real and they screw up or have a shit co-worker or get laid-off.

(I do give a pass to new parents, though.)

I feel exactly as I did when Tom Cruise lost his mind over Katie Holmes (after marriage one and two disintegrated): embarrassed and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

If the early stage emotion is fear or grief, it is equally uncomfortable, but the worst part is that I am asked to pray...

which makes me feel even more uncomfortable because I know what they want me to pray for.

Pray for a miracle.
Pray for a cure.
Pray for complete healing.
Sometimes it is unsaid, and sometimes it is an outright request.

Unfortunately, I am not the person who goes "ok" or "screw that" and then moves on with her life.
I am the person who stews over it and feels bad because I can't pray the way the person asks me and others to pray.

Asking me to pray for what they want, even though I totally understand it, even though I totally understand the rawness of their pain, maybe, possibly isn't the right thing to pray for.
I am entirely not God, and maybe a miracle or cure or complete healing isn't part of the program.
Who the heck am I to read God's mind? Or to tell God what to do?

I can pray for their comfort.
I can pray that they find some solace in this bad, hard, terrible-to-get-through experience.
I can pray that they are surrounded by love.
But I cannot in good conscience pray for what they want.

I feel affected their grief and responsible for their loss because I didn't pray for what they asked.
Perhaps my prayer is that the person is on my mind and heart for far, far longer than the other people who said, "Lift a prayer" and then got back to the business of whatever they do.

La-la-la, La-la-la, moving right along.....well shit

That is how life works.

There I am, just carrying on.
Busy, for sure.
Two weeks of nonstop subbing.
Now working on a few articles.
Girl Scout cookie time which is one of my many UNPAID full-time jobs.

But I got it.
Everything is busy, but under.control.

We knew M was going to have surgery, provided his eardrum was dry today.
No surprise there.
And it's a minor surgery.
But I was expecting maybe three weeks of recovery.

Not so much.
No sports or PE for three weeks.
Recess...probably not for awhile.
Ear packed for 6 weeks.
Doctor visits every two weeks.
Water restriction for 6 weeks to three months.

I had to come home and reschedule our Spring Break 3-day trip.
Going to a water park is not fun if you cannot get in the water at all.

None of this is life-threatening, life-altering.
The surgery will (hopefully) take and (hopefully) restore his full hearing.
It did for me when I was a kid.

But it marked the wall.
The place where I felt myself give out.
The spot where my shoulders felt heavy.
The realization that the skin on my head actually aches.
I'm tired.

The walking humanized intrusive thought who lives in our house--G--
said, "He'll survive."
But I'm not worried that he won't survive.
(More than just that little naggy worry that surgery comes with inherent risk.)
I didn't realize the recovery slog would be so.....sloggy.

The sub, the abortion talk, the fallout

On Tuesday afternoon, when I picked N up from school, she was fired up. She said her sub was arguing with her about abortion.

Now, I didn't just fall off the turnip truck, so I know not to believe every.single.word that comes out of my children's mouths without probing. So I asked questions.

What I determined from her is that students asked the sub his opinion about abortion, and he engaged with them. N reported that his comment to her was, "If people are going to engage in those behaviors, they have to accept the consequences."

I was so busy Tuesday night that I didn't have time to stew over this conversation much besides saying to both her and myself that it seemed wildly inappropriate for a sub to engage in this discussion for a variety of reasons.

But Wednesday morning, when I woke up, I was immediately still bothered by this incident. It isn't part of the curriculum. I doubt that the regular teacher had this topic as part of his sub work. A sub is the last person who should engage students in controversial topics. As a sub myself, I would never engage students in this, even if they asked me to. Fully grown adults can't have civilized conversations about abortion, so why would anyone expect middle schoolers to be able to do so?

It also rubbed me the wrong way because it was a male sub speaking to my female student, a male sub in a position of authority over my female student. And the subtext behind his statement, "If people are going to engage in those behaviors, they have to accept the consequences" bothered me, and I discussed it with N.

What I heard is this statement: If WOMEN are going to HAVE SEX, then WOMEN have to accept the consequences even though MEN DO NOT.

I doubt very much that he was even aware that this was implied by his statement because female ears hear things differently from male ears.

This is when I informed N that even when women use highly effective birth control, as HER OWN MOTHER DID, they can become pregnant. Hello, littlest brother M.

Since it still rankled me on Wednesday morning, I emailed the principal and explained my reasons for being concerned.

Yesterday, I got an email apology from the sub. He was attempting to get the students to think critically about their arguments but realizes now that he probably should have paid more attention to the sensitivity of the topic. He was sincere and professional, and I appreciate his direct communication with me.

This abortion discussion coincides with my own recent subbing, in which I have been with many students who are terribly neglected. Many of them are, essentially, parenting themselves, and as a teacher friend of mine said, "Kids don't do a very good job at raising themselves."

Some of their parents are struggling just to survive---working jobs, with more kids than they should have as a single parent. Some of them are drug addicts. Some of them don't know anything about how to be a responsible parent.

If anyone, including my daughter, asked me whether I think abortion is right or good, I have to say no. I don't think it is, and I wish it wasn't a choice that women feel they have to make. In a perfect world, I wish every child was wanted, treasured, and able to be given a secure, economically stable life.

But we don't live in a perfect world. We live in a world where children are subjected to things that children should not be subjected to. Raising themselves. Drug-addled parents who shouldn't have the responsibility of caring for an inchworm. Parents who can barely read and are, therefore, unable to promote reading or learning or the importance of education. Extreme institutionalized poverty sandwiched between poor financial decisions.

And as much as I dislike abortion, I think it is a far, far worse sin to bring kids into the world that you then abuse or neglect, that you can't feed, that you don't guide.

And if there is anything that makes my head hurt, it is the people who are anti-abortion as well as anti-funding for health care (including birth control) and food and welfare and economic development in impoverished areas and living wages and education.

My friend told me about one boy who has been living at the Home of the Innocents for three years. The father gave up his parental rights (who knows where the mother is or if she is even alive). This child would have been in 3rd grade when this occurred, and he will live forever with the knowledge that his dad gave him up. He wasn't a baby who won't remember anything. Even if the father did this out of an abundance of love, care, and concern, from the child's perspective his dad gave him up, abandoned him. A child doesn't easily recover from that if he does at all.

Many of these neglected kids will become addicted themselves. The girls will become teen mothers. Many of the boys will end up in prison. They will become the parents of the next generation's neglected kids.

As much as I don't think abortion is good, I also don't think life at all costs and under all circumstances is good either.