Neither of us regret the surgery, and we are so happy we did it. Usually I'm all, "I'm so happy that we did it and that we don't have to go through it again."
Ha. AHHhHHAHHHaaahahhhaaaahahAHHAhahHAHAHAHAaahahahhahhhhHA. -- The Universe.
It has been a trying last few weeks. Bug got sick with the flu, and threw up several times, including one time publicly, although at least this time it was not in my car, and I didn't have to clean that one up.
Then I tried to be hip with the moms out here and hire a Mexican cleaning woman, but after 37 half-understood phone calls to someone "recommended," she showed up with her cleaning friend and wanted to charge me ONE HUNDRED FUCKING DOLLARS to clean my house, and I had to say to her face "no thank you," after which I'm sure her and her friend spent the next hour cursing out the "dumb white woman." You guys, my house is so small, I can vacuum almost the entire thing from one single outlet in the dining room. After they left I was so fired up. I was angry, bewildered, embarrassed, confused, and MAD AT MYSELF THAT I THOUGHT I COULD POSE AS SOMEONE WEALTHY, WHO MAYBE HIRED CLEANING LADIES. News flash: I cannot.
My floors have still not been cleaned, although I did vacuum the house today using just the outlet in the dining room.
Bug also managed to throw her first two meltdowns that caused neighbors to exit their homes to see what the commotion was (i.e. who was screaming like they were being murdered). One set of neighbors belonged to the house we were visiting (which made it 2394872938472x more awesome, and which resulted in me throwing a prized, half-eaten jelly sandwich out of the window on the freeway on the way home, and also me hand writing a note of apology and groveling for forgiveness after we ruined their night and probably their ideas of having children EVER in their lifetime) and one set was our very own next-door ones. Every time I see them now I feel like they're watching me and debating if I really am torturing her behind closed doors. I have never seen her freak out in such an elaborate, uncontrolled way. She's almost five! It is unbelievable. I have never before felt so completely unsuited and unequipped for parenthood than I have in the last month.
Last Wednesday we were back at the ophthalmologist for our two month follow-up appointment. Her eyes did the very opposite of what they expected to see, which is to say they continue to defy convention or prediction. Now we are being told things like, "my surgery schedule is about two months out, so that's the soonest you could get in." Whoa, horse. I don't even fully understand what this surgery is about. I mean, I do on the surface, and I could regurgitate what was said to us, but I don't understand it in my bones. That sounds silly. But when we did her first surgery, it was something that we had been talking about and internalizing for over a year. It felt like an obvious and natural next step for her. This does not, at least not yet.
Obviously we are not going to be jumping into or agreeing to anything we do not fully understand or want, but I was enjoying my blissful ignorance about additional issues with her vision, and I am a human being and not excited to see that end.
The worst part to me at this point in time is that this would be a surgery on her horizontal muscles. She has already had surgery on all of her vertical muscles. They will have to ensure there is enough blood supply in those surgically-altered vertical muscles before they will go ahead with the horizontal changes so they don't completely cut off the blood supply to her eyes. Gross. I know they don't work well but they're really not going to work well without blood (obviously).
The hard parts of our first decision seem easy now. At the time it was slightly agonizing to make a decision on something that was at least 50% cosmetic. Now that seems like an obvious and not agonizing thing (because I know the result, duh). This time I'm being told she lacks all sorts of things (binocular vision, 3D vision, etc), but she's more or less functional (sometimes more less than more), so it feels harder to see the cost/benefit. What's also harder is knowing what the process would be like with an almost five year old. Two years ago she was two years old, and had not yet developed her now crippling anxiety around hospitals and any doctor's appointment that requires her to lay down on a table (or not lay down - when we were at the doctor two weeks ago for her flu, she screamed bloody murder and had to be held down SO THEY COULD TAKE HER TEMPERATURE IN HER EAR). She is too old to be blissfully ignorant about everything, and too young to truly understand any sort of explanation.
We find out Friday if we will be added to the surgery calendar or not. Complicating matters further is our move in August. I would like her current ophthalmologist to do her surgery. Like is an understatement. He needs to do her surgery. So it has to be done before we go, if it is to be done.
Then after the eye appointment I had to go to an appointment with my least favorite government entity, San Diego Regional Center, to see if Bug qualifies again. (She was serviced by them when we first moved here -- they administer Early Intervention, among other things -- but once she turned three, the school district took over via her IEP, and we said SEE YOU LATER YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN HELPFUL to them and never looked back). But now I need them so that I can get a waiver for MediCal, so that I can get maybe get services from something else. Blah-blah-blah it never ends. So this was an intake meeting, and I show up with my four enormous 3-ring binders full of medical records and documents and I go through my most-hated dog and pony show of "let me tell you everything that is wrong with my kid." I hate these things mostly because it's such an emotionally weird and fucked-up game to have to play. You spend most of your regular days working really hard with your child in their HOURS of weekly therapy appointments and doctor's appointments marking progress and convincing yourself it's not, you know, THAT bad. And then you come to these and it's your goal to make it sound as terrible as possible so that you can get services.
This one was made extra super fun because she was with me. She hears EVERYTHING, and loves to contradict everything I say for sport, which is much more fun in public, obviously. Also, this was immediately after the meltdown/sandwich-out-the-window/my-life-is-ending incident, and I was SURE she was going to blurt something out about how "Mom and Dad are so mean to me," every time they asked her a question. I was silently begging them to stop trying to engage her (she was not required to be there, but was, because she's always along for everything). As I was reading off all of her diagnoses I kept imagining (or not imagining) their side-eye at her, because, and this is MY MOST HATED THING EVER EVER EVER, she "looks fine." But I've got hundreds of hours of therapy and services in the bank (and an abandoned career) to get us where we are today, along with this encyclopedia of documentation, so think whatever the hell you want EVERYONE IN THIS WORLD.
They were serviceably nice, and we should have a decision in 4-6 weeks, because Government. So I wait and follow-up with the thousand other phone calls I need to make (and damn you, Eastern Time Zone!).
Oh, we also welcomed Ralph into our house, and she lost another tooth.
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