Not every superhero in our house gets our ear when he thinks he’s dying
Superhero 1, who can force himself through a 10-mile, uphill run with cramps and pain and blood dripping down the knees, makes the dying claim exactly every time in his life he’s ever thrown up. (The Peppercorn Incident of 2016 will also go down in history as the day a member of the spice cabinet killed not the 10-year-old mouth where it lodged but the ears of every member of the household who had to listen to banshee shrieking for the following five hours.)
But when Superman, who has endured 10 surgeries and more hospitalizations and regular medical procedures than all the members of our house combined, says he’s in physical pain, we know he’s not messing around.
On Thursday afternoon, that tough-as-nails boy doubled over in pain to the point of being unable to walk, and by dinnertime, he told us he thought he needed to go to the hospital.
When he emptied the contents of his stomach all over the E.R. parking lot, my shoes and his brand new mask in what can only be described as a fireworks display of exploding vomit, I knew it was more than a few aches and pains. (Superman: 1, puke-catching mask: 0.)
We spent Thursday night in our local emergency room, where doctors diagnosed an obstruction that needed pediatric specialty care. After an ambulance ride to the same children’s hospital where both Superman and Superhero 4 have had surgeries over the last four years, some of our favorite specialists let us know that, if they couldn’t resolve the issue in 24 to 48 hours, they’d have to perform surgery.
(When the most precious nurses asked Superman if he had any questions, he didn’t ask about his pain. He didn’t ask about possible surgery. He, in his very logical and matter-of-fact state, simply asked when his NG tube, which has been his most formidable foe in the hospital, could come out. When she said sometime soon, he replied, “No. The exact time. What is the exact time you will take this out of my nose?” When she couldn’t give him an answer, he stared at me in frustration and gave me the look that said, “Why did she ask me if I had any questions if she wasn’t prepared to answer them?!”)
After another sleepless night where Superman waited for the O.R. to open (and also subconsciously pulled out his NG tube two different times in his drifting-off-to-sleep state, which means that sweet boy had a tube forced up his nose and down his throat FOUR times in three days), doctors let us know that they would have to push off surgery until Saturday because of O.R. availability.
Saturday at noon, some of the best pediatric surgeons in the nation took that brave boy back and, after a fairly quick two and a half hours of surgery, fixed the obstruction that had caused Superman so much pain.
Although I’d prayed that Superman’s body would clear the obstruction on its own, it turns out that God knows a whole lot better than me.
Because when surgeons opened him up, they discovered not just the cause of the obstruction but a heap full of dense scar tissue from his surgeries in China that needed addressed — things we would have never known about had he not been opened up.
What’s more, they were able to revive body parts they were concerned they might have to partially remove. (If you want to both praise Jesus for modern medicine and simultaneously barf up your waiting room granola bar, just watch a doctor’s eyes light up as he explains how he held your child’s innards in his hands.)
And, because they waited until Saturday instead of Friday, Superman’s daddy, who both tells the best corny recovery jokes AND, Superman told me, “knows what he’s doing in a hospital better than you, Mom,” was able to be present.
Just praising God for unanswered prayers.
Because the surgery was more involved than they originally thought, doctors warned us that his recovery would be slow, and his medical team is planning for him to be in-patient for about a week and NPO for the next several days. Because the last time he had a bite of food or a sip of water was on Thursday afternoon, sweet boy is starving and thirsty and his only request every time his nurse asks if he needs anything is, “Yes, I would please like a sip of water,” with which she responds, “Sorry, buddy, anything ELSE?” (This normally super sweet and sensitive gentleman is shooting fiery darts out of his hangry eyes at nurses who he can’t even talk into ice cubes. He wants a sip of water, three trays of lasagna and a crab dinner, please, and for the love of all things holy, why can no one make this happen?!)
My incredible man (who I just can’t stop thanking God is on the continent for this medical emergency) took over Operation Superman on Sunday and sent me home to kiss the other babies and figure out their meals, rides and education for the week.
Only by the time this exhausted mama made it back to the house, she had one precious daddy waiting for her on the couch, one incredible mama who had already stocked her fridge with vats of chili and fresh salmon leftovers, coffee and meal gift certificates in her mail and email boxes, cards and gifts for Superman sitting by her front door, a million and one texts, prayers and offers for physical help in her voicemail and an entire co-op that had already scheduled and planned out meals for the week.
The boys had totally cleaned the house (boy standards are still better than no standards!), Superhero 1 was emptying the dishwasher and filing away homework he’d helped Superhero 4 complete and Superhero 2 had recorded get-well messages with his co-op and was trying to give me money to stop and please buy little brother presents on the way back to the hospital.
Listen, I no longer cry over medical emergencies because I firmly believe Jesus loves these kiddos even more than me, and we’ve seen time and time again how He uses these otherwise scary scenarios for so much beauty and so much good, even when I can’t appreciate it in my microscopic view in the moment.
But I need exactly 5,392 crying-your-face-off emojis to describe my reaction to the incredibly generous and selfless friends, family, parents and kiddos that He, in all His grace, has so lavishly placed in my life.
Just wahhhhhhhhhh.
Before my head hit the pillow Sunday night, every friend, family member and human on Planet Earth had generously stepped in to deliver meals, provide rides, schedule virtual therapy, keep kiddos before and after school and in general run my life way better than me for our anticipated week in the hospital. My medical-mama-soulmate-sister, who was out of town visiting family, even sent her husband to the store to purchase exactly half of Aldi and drop it at our door.
(Thankfully, after reading exactly 2.53 million teacher emails that came into my box between Thursday and Sunday, I discovered that Superhero 4’s school decided to host a costume day this week — because school dress-up days are not the joy of every kindergartner and the foe of every adult who quit parenting three kids ago. In the wake of the death of the parent Pinterest costume, I, like a good fourth-time mom, promptly sent that excited superhero downstairs to the dress-up bin to scavenge together anything that could possibly resemble a costume. When he found Superhero 1’s Yoda garb from Halloween 2008, I reassured him that the too-tight-fitting green ears were cute. Let’s just repurpose it as Baby Yoda and pretend we bought it at Walmart yesterday.)
Although I’d left a defeated-looking little boy who was barely comfortable on large doses of morphine and hadn’t smiled in three entire days, I returned to the hospital Monday afternoon to find a boy who, although still quiet, shy and weak, was already WALKING THE HALL and off every pain med in his cocktail but Tylenol.
Not Tylenol with codeine.
Not Tylenol filled with rainbows and unicorns and other magical ingredients.
We’re talking acetaminophen.
Like, what I took for a headache on the way to the hospital.
Not sure his nurses understood that the boy had a THREE-INCH abdominal scar and organs sitting literally outside of his body just two days before, I asked Super-Spouse if that was really okay. I mean, Superman basically executed the equivalent of having a baby and a c-section in one day with a side of organ scraping. I would need a straight-up morphine drip, please.
But when the nurse asked him his pain level before she gave him his next scheduled dose of Tylenol before bed, he told her it was at a 3.
THREE.
What a BEAST.
Last night, Superman and I were able to walk the floor four times before he felt like he needed to sit down, and before bed, he asked if we could just snuggle up and watch a cooking show.
Because the boy will be NPO for at least a couple more days, I asked him if he was sure he wanted to see food on T.V. that he couldn’t have.
“Yes,” he replied. “We’re just going to look for a cooking show where the people are really bad at it so I don’t want it.”
Perfect.
God is good, because lo and behold, there WAS a Cake Wars type program airing at that exact time where the contestants had to make gruesome-looking cakes to celebrate October. And so we spent the evening discussing only bad-tasting cake and reconsidering Superman’s future plans of becoming a wolf keeper in exchange for the chance at becoming a cake-tasting judge on a television show.
The things NPO will do.
Although this normally silly, fast and energetic little man who only understands running feet and outside voices is quiet, still, understandably mopey and somewhat frustrated and withdrawn (listen, people, the IV fluids that are making me pee but do nothing for my crab cravings are NOT cutting it, says the belly of the boy who can out-eat nearly every other human in our home), we’re still seeing glimpses of the vibrant, effervescent, spirited little boy we know.
Like when his awesome Auntie Mandy Zoomed in for a bedside art lesson and he hung up the call and used his brand new coloring skills to start working on a superhero poster our sweet friends had sent him to the hospital. (Superhero poster coloring was only made better because Dad had apparently let him watch exactly four superhero movies Mom would never have while he was on duty the night before, which is possibly why he grinned deviously as he colored between the lines.)
And like when he told me with a smile before bed, “No offense, Mom, but every time you sleep in my bed, this NG tube comes out, so…” [insert eye roll toward the most uncomfortable chair on the face of the planet]. (I quickly bartered with the fuzzy blankie, which this boy loves only second to a good pair of comfy socks, to allow him to let me snuggle up in his bed with him for the night. Thank you, Lord, for sparing me the chair that sent Super-Spouse home with Motrin and back pain.)
There’s a reason we call this guy Superman.
Although the first question the sweetest and most caring and concerned friends and family members ask in texts and emails is always about Superman, the second is often, “But how are you REALLY doing?”
Y’all. Just listen.
God is good, my husband is on the planet, my baby is healing and the most loving and incredible people are essentially running my life for me for a week. My job for the next seven days is literally to spend one-on-one time with one of my favorite people on the planet, and I just do what he does.
He reads, I read.
He naps, I nap.
He gets hangry with nurses who won’t even let him suck on ice chips, I sneak into the bathroom and turn on the bathtub to drown out the sound of secretly devoured granola bars that will keep me, too, from using my mean eyes.
Even virtual schooling is a blessing in a hospital room with internet 10x faster than what we have at home. We’re over here wading through assignments both because we both feel as if we’re getting dumber by the day and could use some third grade stimulation AND just to stand back in a mesmerized state as said assignments load in less than 5 minutes on our computer screens. (Oh Centurylink, how you have filled my heart with gratitude for those with better internet throughout this world.)
(Extra bonus, Superman’s fabulous teachers this week both posted social-emotional lessons that helped him get through NG Tube Insertion No. 4 AND made him laugh for only the second time when the spooky writing assignment story ended with a big reveal of a jelly bean. Virtual schooling: Not my favorite. The smile his virtual teachers just provided: Priceless.)
With the most amazing people on the planet running my normal schedule and delivering my family the most delicious-sounding of meals, I’m basically playing hookie on my life while I completely forego all adulting. And with a man not only HOME but also enthusiastically jumping into such things as kindergarten homework packets and 6th grade co-op supervision (dear Lord, PLEASE let someone take pictures of this former Army Ranger leading P.E. for seven middle schoolers), I am just out-of-my-mind thankful.
I promise, except for the whole having-your-heart-broken-by-your-child-in-pain thing, it’s like a Carnival Cruise all up in here.
#pullinga2020on2020
Sweet friends, thanks so much for your messages. Thanks so much for your love. And thanks so much for your prayers for the people who ACTUALLY need it — our sweet, ailing superhero and the husband now at home playing Tooth Fairy (way to remember, baby!), outfitting one outrageously sassy Baby Yoda and somehow working full-time clinic hours while simultaneously signing out from our military post on this, his last full week in the Army.
THESE are the REAL heroes of the story.
