Pre-Surgery Anxiety

I'm in a rather thick cloud of denial that Andi's BAHA surgery is less than two weeks away.  When I pause to think about it, my anxiety escalates and I'm instantly thrown back into the dark days of fear and unknown.  

There's only so much denial I can allow, as frankly, after Thanksgiving - it's go time.  At some point I am going to have to deal with all the emotions being shoved down and ignored.  Preferably dealt with before I'm in the waiting room hyperventilating with fear, or in emotional shut-down mode.  The second is more likely.

I recognize I'm keeping myself busy.  Even busier than usual.  Filling my head with any sort of distraction I can find.  When I pause to imagine that this Doctor is basically going to drill two holes in my daughters skull.  I mean, join me in the land of cuckoo, why don't you.  

Yep, fear rules the school when you let that visual in.  This PTSD from our first few years is a feeling I don't think I will ever fully come to terms with.  It changed me.  It broke me.  It fixed me.  It hurt me.  The whole gamut of putting my own life on hold while Dr's tried to save or improve hers.  The sleepless nights of barf-o-rama, leaking g-tube, or the ridiculous amount of appointments, specialists, therapists, feeding clinic, financial death by co-pays.  I mean, is there really any getting over all that we endured?  Unlikely.  I mean, I'm not sitting here harboring a lot of unresolved emotions, but, facing another surgery is bringing back a lot of the anxiety we used to live and breathe.

On top of that.  She's older. She talks.  She knows more. She feels more. She is much more aware.  I think that will make it harder than it was when she was a baby as I didn't really know her yet.  But as she's older, I am even more afraid because she is so much more a part of everything I am.  She is my mini-me as evidenced by the jokes she tried to tell me at lunch yesterday.  Like me, she just wants to make people laugh.  She truly is an amazing little girl.  I'm so proud of her. As her Mom, all I want to do is make sure she's okay. Something broken, I want to fix it.  Something hurts, I want to heal it.  Someone does her wrong, good luck prying me off them.

13 days until we check-in at 6 a.m.  

I am afraid.  I am worried.  I am letting the anxiety percolate and bubble up much like her acid reflux that struck her again today.  So, if we all seem a little edgier, crazier, or even slightly distant -- here's a solid reason why... we've got some serious pre-surgery anxiety going on 'round here.