Yes. My son recently got some very bad news. His painful brace doesn't seem to be working well enough. We are being referred to a pediatric orthopedic surgeon. They may recommend a surgery that has a high complication rate. He has read some of this. There is a risk of neurological damage and death.
He took the news better than I expected at least on the outside but his blood pressure went way up. He has always tried to hide his anxiety. He somehow manages to laugh and tell jokes to ease the tension instead of crying and tries his best to get me from getting upset. When we went to eat afterward I was too busy trying to hold back tears to eat and he told his dad that he had tried everything he knew to get my mind off of the bad news. He suggested that his dad start singing in the restaurant in front of all the lunch crowd and he did and it was so ridiculous that my tears turned to laughter and we all got through it. Humor and laughter sometimes is the best medicine.
When we went home I found out that my mother was getting much worse and my dad couldn't get her to eat or drink and they had to take her to the hospital by ambulance. She is not expected to live much longer. This all started with complications from a minor surgery.
I thought of my son's "sometimes not everyone can be okay" often, especially when his little friend drowned about six months after 9/11 and couldn't be revived, when my husband was given a 50/50 chance of beating cancer (he did, thankfully but we went through lots of stress when he had checkups to see if cancer had returned) and when my mother suffered devastating complications of "minor" surgery. I can't get those words out of my mind. Sometimes not everyone can be okay.
I am spending hours online looking for alternative treatments for scoliosis and then trying to act normal and manage homeschooling when my son is awake.
I will not turn on the television today. I don't think I can take it.
