“We are doing the right thing,” I say.
Are we doing the right thing?
My husband nods. “Better to do it now. She probably won’t even remember it.” The lines etched into his forehead are unconvincing.
Hundreds of thousands of children—millions, maybe—have their tonsils out every year. It’s as common as getting a filling at the dentist. A rite of passage. But hundreds of thousands of children are not my own two-year-old daughter Emerie, toddling along in happy ignorance as we follow the nurse through the sterile, echoing corridors to the pre-op room.
In the room, there is the usual battery of vitals and questions: blood pressure, temperature, has she eaten anything since last night? I change Emerie into a hospital gown covered with dancing teddy bears. It swallows her like a tent.
The nurse is running down the procedural checklist with the empathy of a drill sergeant while I entertain Emerie with a few cotton balls and a tongue depressor.
“First, I’ll administer a little valium to make her drowsy.” Check.
“Then one of the surgical nurses will take her to the operating room.” Check.
“They’ll put a little mask over her nose and mouth and she’ll fall asleep.” Check.
“The whole procedure shouldn’t take more than a half hour.” Check.
My brain registers the fact that this information is supposed to be reassuring.
“What about the IV?” I ask. “They won’t put it in until after she’s asleep, right?”
“Sure,” says the drill sergeant nurse. She hands me a little measuring cup with the Valium, and although I am tempted to toss it back myself, I put it to Emerie’s lips and she drinks it down without complaint.
The nurse exits through a swinging door that leads into the surgical corridor. The clock ticks. The fluorescent light hums. Emerie giggles. I cringe with guilt.
At first we thought the snoring was funny. You could hear her from any room in the house. Even as a baby, her sleepy chortling could match that of any grown man. And even though she was my third child, I didn’t know that I was supposed to be worried. I fall into the camp of motherhood that doesn’t make a big deal out of runny noses or fevers or falling off bikes. Childhood, I think, is fraught with events that can be cured with a few Tylenol or a princess Band-Aid. Snoring is apparently not one of those things.
I didn’t know this until the night I was in her bedroom putting away laundry after she had fallen asleep, clumsily rummaging through the closet for an empty clothes hanger.
