Post operative post

Twenty-two years, 24 days ago a nineteen year old guy did something that none of us should ever be in a position to have to do. His fifteen year old brother, pale and wan and weighing all of 55 pounds, had been on dialysis for months after the removal of his diseased kidneys. The kidney he donated lasted a good long time, considering how many diseases ravaged my brother-in-law's body because the anti-rejection drugs made his immune system incapable of fighting them off. He lost in finger in 1994 to a strain of TB that probably would have shown almost no symptoms in the rest of us. But this post isn't about either of my brothers-in-law. Six days, twelve hours ago, my husband was being wheeled into surgery to begin the process of rerouting everything connected to his left kidney so it could be taken out. The surgery went as it should, and the kidney started working right away when it found its new home next to the one that been transplanted all those years ago. Hubby and BIL have both come home from the hospital and are on their way to recovery. But this post isn't really about my husband, either. It makes me sad when children have to learn about hospitals and intensive care units and major surgery before their ages reach double digits. I saw more crib-gurneys pass through the hallways outside of the GOR waiting room last Monday than I ever want to see. I saw children with IV poles next to their strollers. And it made me so very thankful that everything that has hit my children has been controlled with ibuprofen, cold compresses, and an occasional nebulizer treatment. But the thing that choked me up the most about the pediatric view of the past week was seeing Hoss, run to his father but stop short. "Can I hug you, Daddy?" he asked. "A hug around the neck would be great," Hubby replied. So Hoss advanced, and threw his arms around his dad, and said, in that serious voice he sometimes gets, "I promise I'll be gentle. You've got some BIG boo-boos." And then he sat on the floor next to his father's chair and listened attentively as his father answered every question he could come up with about the organs pictured on Daddy's t-shirt, and what they did, and where they were located in his body. "And now Uncle B has your extra kidney, right?" Hoss asked, "And you made him all better? That was nice of you. You're a good daddy." All I can say is that he's a good Hoss.