Wednesday

It's only been about a week since I posted my last blog and already I feel like somebody else wrote it. I still feel lucky, and mostly good, and all that.

But I'm starting to get freaked out by the idea of the surgery, and the body cast, and my son's cognizance that well exceeds his age. The idea of him being in that kind of pain turns me inside out.

Tonight when Jim was reading Maya and Sam a bedtime story on her toddler bed, Sam wanted to get down. (I was on my never-ending mission of putting laundry away.) Then, out of nowhere, Sam began shrieking and saying his knee hurt. "It huuuuurrts!" he howled, pointing to his right knee. I told him I'd get him some special medicine, and took him to his room. I decided to give him Tylenol.

That was partly because the mom I met through this blog, whose 6-year-old daughter also has Metaphyseal Chondrodysplasia, Schmid type, and who hasn't had surgery yet for Coxa Vara, said her girl began complaining of pain in her knees around age three or four. Apparently that was the first time she could articulate it, and I guarantee, if I hadn't spoken to this mom, I wouldn't have put this together either. I would have assumed Sam bumped his knee. But I've seen him react this way before to knee pain and because of her, I realized that this stems from their form of skeletal dysplasia.

I gave him his Tylenol in a little dropper to drink down, and he took it, but then pointed to his knee again, and searched for the right words.

"No, Mommy, here, my knee hurts," he said, pointing. "I need my 'peshal' medicine."

"I know honey, this will make that feel better in a few minutes," I said.

"No," he tried again. "Want my knee medicine?"

So I told him that it would take time, but it would feel better in a few minutes -- and that this winter, he would have surgery so his knees wouldn't hurt, and so he could run and jump more easily.

"Run and jump?" he asked me.

"That's right buddy," I told him. "But it will hurt at first, and you'll be in something called a cast, and you won't be able to move much for a while. But then you will be able to run and jump, and don't worry, I'll be right there with you. The doctors will help you and I'll take care of you too."

He seemed to be thinking most about running and jumping before telling me he wanted to go back into Maya's room to keep reading. On our way there, he took my face in his hands to steer it to look in his eyes, as he only does when he really wants me to hear what he's saying.

"You be a doctor too Mommy? You be a doctor too?" he asked.

"Oh honey... I won't be a doctor, but I'll be right there the whole time... I'll be right there, and they will make you feel better and even though it will hurt at first, you will get better and I'll take care of you," I told him.

"You be a doctor too, Mommy? Pwease?"