FEAR AND WORRY

Connor had his long-anticipated eye appointment yesterday. Luscious went in with the knowledge that an operation could be on the cards, but rather hoped the solution would prove to be much simpler.

It doesn't.

Basically, the muscles that control the movement of his eyes are too far forward, and working too hard. The doctor has to cut them out, move them to the back, and sew them in again. A surgeon (and we all know how much I trust and respect those guys) will be waving a scalpel not near, not in front of, but in my son's eyes.

Right now I'm so terrified of what can go wrong I don't even want to think about it, never mind talk. The kids sat down last night with the long list of complications given to us by the doctor, and worked us all into a state of high anxiety. Cassie was reduced to tears at one stage, and I wasn't far behind.

I really don't know how to handle this. The only comfort we've found to take hope in is that there's a 70% chance that he won't have to go in and have a second operation. So that's a 70% chance he'll have normal vision after the first attempt.

I realised last night that every time any member of my family goes into hospital, probably for the rest of my life, I'm going to be a nervous disaster area. And no amount of "It's only one chance in a million/billion/squillion" is going to change that: I had that one chance run me over already. I spent the 9 months of Lyn's pregnancy a shivering wreck (doing her state of calm no end of damage in the meantime), and now we all have to go through it on behalf of a helpless little boy to whom it will be impossible to justify the pain and upset.

There's no fairness. I know it's for his own good. I know that if we don't do this, he will be blind in his left eye by the time he's five. I know that we are good parents, the best of parents, for doing this for our son. And I know he has the best surgeon in WA performing the operation.

But why him? And why us?