660 DAYS

660 days ago I handed this sweet little boy off to a brilliant neurosurgeon and a team of residents, anesthesiologists and nurses and trusted with every fiber of my being that they would care about my baby as if he was their own child. Watching the doctors wheel a huge hospital crib with my sweet baby away to have his brain operated on broke something in me. It was like watching my heart roll away down the hallway and leaving me behind.

Today, 660 days later we are getting ready to hand our baby off again. This time, instead of radical brain surgery, our brave little boy is going to have his tonsils and adenoids removed. A surgery that clearly pales in comparison to a hemispherectomy but it is still managing to bring up so many memories I have managed to neatly package away in the back of my mind for the past 660 days. There’s a lot of trauma that comes with being a parent to a medically fragile child and unfortunately no matter how hard I have tried to convince myself that this surgery is “not a big deal”…all those traumatic emotions and memories from April 2020 are managing to rear up their ugly heads the past several days. Bring a parent to a medically fragile child is definitely not for the faint of heart, that’s for sure!

We are so hopeful that this surgery will help to ease some of the sleep apnea that several of his doctors strongly suspect he has, help to stop his snoring, and help him have fewer upper respiratory infections. We are also keeping our fingers and toes crossed that solving a few of these problems will help him (and his dad and I) finally get some restful sleep. An added bonus is that both Brandon and I will be able to be there for this surgery day…unlike his last one. Thank you UCLA for keeping your 2 parent policy in place, my mama heart really appreciates it.

So to my sweet boy, I hope you always know that you are braver and stronger than I will ever be. Today and the next 2 weeks are going to be no fun but I promise to let you have all the jello and popsicles you want and to not complain at all about how much Sesame Street you watch. I love you more than all the stars in the sky my little love. 💜

We certainly appreciate any thoughts and prayers you wouldn’t mind sending our way today. Everett should be back in the OR around 2:00 PM and surgery should take a couple hours. We will post an update once he has made it through surgery.

-Sara