Here we go again

So the letter I have been waiting weeks for still hasn't arrived - because we received an unexpected phone call. 

Martha's second Open Heart operation is to take place next week.

I thought we would at least get a couple of weeks notice, well that's what I was hoping we would get; instead all we had was 10 days.

When we arrive we are to take her to Walrus where we will have her pre-op, we will meet the surgeons, sign the consent forms and be given her fasting times

The next day we have to live through hell again. She be will be nil by mouth (except for water) for 6 hours prior to the op and for the final two hours she wont even be allowed water; it's going to be so hard to console her when she starts getting hungry; something we didn't have to deal with last time as she couldn't tolerate milk and was given glucose through I.V.

We will be in tears as our tiny 12 week old daughter smiles and gurgles at us, blissfully unaware that her parents are about to put her through her second major surgery. There will be an agonising wait for the call to come from Theatre for the nurses to take her down. We will walk through one door out of the ward while Martha Grace goes through another. We will catch a brief glimpse of her entering the Theatre lift, probably awake this time - with no idea that she's about to be put to sleep and that when she wakes she will be uncomfortable with chest drains, central lines and ART lines coming from her. She might even wake as she did last time - but be unable to move because she's been given clonodine to paralyse her so that she can't pull at the many wires sticking out of her.

We will spend the afternoon wandering aimlessly around London, trying desperately not to think what our little girl is having done to her. We'll probably sit in a cafe Googling the surgeons name. I'll probably carry her shawl around and will smell it every now and again only to break down in tears at the scent.

As it nears the time when she should be coming out of theatre we'll just hang around the Hospital waiting for the phone call to say she's made it.

Then we'll visit her and she'll be almost unrecognisable because she's so swollen from the fluid overload, the Doctors will be trying desperately to stabilise her while she fights to survive; all we can do is watch. We'll then have an up and down few days while Martha's little body tries her best to recover.

And she will recover - she HAS to recover.

This is what I am hoping happens.

Science can only go so far - then comes God!

GM

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