Re: My daughter is going into the hospital Just what i need!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

From: Lgapmon@aol.com
Thu Jul 19 17:01:20 2001


Hi Colette --

You wrote:

<<But my little girl is 3 yrs old and she is going into the hospital on July 30th for dental work!! They are going to pull the 4 top front teeth, and cap some of the bottom teeth and whatever else maybe done! They are going to do it under general anethesia which is making me a nervous wreck! I'm afraid something bad will happen i don't know why but she is my life i need her!>>

OK, sit down in a soft, overstuffed chair...lean back and take a s-l-o-w, deep breath. Hold it til you count to ten and exhale slowly, counting to ten. Then leap up, jump up and down and scream and pull your hair out <G>. *kidding!*

First off, I'm really sorry your daughter needs surgery. It is worrisome but believe me, she'll do great. Kids are resilient. They bounce back like nothing ever happened. My older son, who will be 10 in Sept. (how is THAT possible?!), had surgery when he was 5 years old. Apparently a spider bit him on his upper eyelid, just below the brow...the bite never healed properly because of the location -- it formed a little cyst that grew larger and larger. We tried heat compresses and manipulating the cyst but still it grew. Finally surgery was the only option. He came through it like a champ. Hardly even has a mark where the incision was to remove the cyst, either.

The best thing you can do for your daughter and yourself is stay calm. As they prep her for the procedure, you will need to make sure you are not a nervous wreck. If you are calm, she will be, too.

Bring one of her favorite toys to the hospital and keep her distracted while they insert the IV. Once that is in, they administer the stuff to make her relax and she will be home free.

It helped our son to know when he woke up, we would have a specific toy he had been wanting for months there, ready for him. (It was a Lego Rescue Raiders jet, complete with little Lego people!) As the kids wake up from general anesthetic, they sometimes are a little grouchy. Takes them less than a day to throw off the anesthetic, then the job becomes keeping them still while the wound heals!

Second, while it is wonderful, normal and admirable for you to love your daughter so very much, try not to put too much responsibility on her for your own well being. She's three years old. She needs a mommy who loves her because she is who she is. It's okay for us to have bad days and be grouchy with pain, and certainly our children are the best "bright spots" on the horizon. Especially when our spouses are not always fonts of never-ending compassion. Our kids cannot be the center of our world, however -- they are the center of the one we help them to create for themselves.

I know you can't help being distraught and I don't blame you...but this isn't another thing that should make you go, "Just what I need...." this isn't about you at all, it's about a little girl who needs you to be loving, calm and strong so she will look back at this as a decent experience.

Please take what I am saying in the way it is meant (with love and kindness), from someone whose parents put way too much on her way too early...It's no fun to be everything to your parents. They never want to let go or see you for who you are, and their happiness/sadness in life rests squarely on your shoulders. Who can carry that burden at all, much less effectively?

The day comes when either you agree to lose yourself within them completely, thus giving up your own life. Or you have to leave them permanently, possibly destroying the relationship, because you can no longer stand propping them up. I will make mistakes raising my children, I know I will. But I will never expect them to be responsible for my happiness, or my sadness, in my life.

Let her be a little girl, love her, sing to her, hold her...she will be fine, and so will you. :)

There is a passage in Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet" on children that I think is one of the most beautiful pieces ever written about, and for, them:

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love, but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backwards nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Love,

Lynda M. in AZ

"Man is born to live and not to prepare to live." - Boris Pasternak


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