25 April 2006
living through it
Three was sitting at the breakfast table. Not eating. Since everything has to be done at reasonably top speed in the mornings, I, naturally, ask her what she's doing.
Then I made my mistake.
"Three! You look like you are sleeping with your eyes open."
She covered her eyes with one hand, kind of grinding it around, and started sobbing.
There goes the Mother of the Year Award again, I thought to myself.
"Three! I was just teasing you--what's wrong??"
"My neck hurts," she managed to choke out.
This kind of thing has happened before but it always throws me for a loop. She hides her pain, her illness, her hurts. They sometimes bust out when she's caught unawares. Pain--both physical and emotional--scares her.
What did her former life teach her that is so powerful that the relative ease of her life now can't erase it? Will she ever talk to me about this?
Can't I just make her bond with me????
But you know, and I know, this isn't about me.
When she first came home, she had to have ear surgery. It happened like this. She was having her first exam about a week after arriving. The doctor, who has been my pediatrician and friend for 13 years, looked into her ear and said (very uncharacteristically), "Oh. My. GOD." She called the pediatric ear surgeon herself, on the spot.
Three had a huge hole in her eardrum, apparently from repeated, untreated ear infections. She is, notwithstanding, one of the lucky ones. In Haiti, people, the poor ones, often die of illnesses a course of ampicillin can take care of.
The surgeon had to use skin from behind her ear as a graft and wasn't sure it would take.
It did. The operation was a huge success. Convalescence, though, 'bout killed both of us (me and Three, not the doctor.) She was terrified the whole time. The pain meds were good, but didn't mask all of the pain. She had a huge bandage over her ear. The graft site itched. I believe she was convinced, despite my repeated reassurances, that she was going to die in this strange house surrounded by this strange family that had done this inexplicable thing to her.
None of the words I carefully looked up in the Kreyol-English dictionary helped a bit.
We just had to live through it.
And so, this morning, I gave her some liquid motrin, a kiss, and instructions to move it carefully and gently as often as she thought of it.
Her neck is fine now.
Some day the rest of her will be too.
Then I made my mistake.
"Three! You look like you are sleeping with your eyes open."
She covered her eyes with one hand, kind of grinding it around, and started sobbing.
There goes the Mother of the Year Award again, I thought to myself.
"Three! I was just teasing you--what's wrong??"
"My neck hurts," she managed to choke out.
This kind of thing has happened before but it always throws me for a loop. She hides her pain, her illness, her hurts. They sometimes bust out when she's caught unawares. Pain--both physical and emotional--scares her.
What did her former life teach her that is so powerful that the relative ease of her life now can't erase it? Will she ever talk to me about this?
Can't I just make her bond with me????
But you know, and I know, this isn't about me.
When she first came home, she had to have ear surgery. It happened like this. She was having her first exam about a week after arriving. The doctor, who has been my pediatrician and friend for 13 years, looked into her ear and said (very uncharacteristically), "Oh. My. GOD." She called the pediatric ear surgeon herself, on the spot.
Three had a huge hole in her eardrum, apparently from repeated, untreated ear infections. She is, notwithstanding, one of the lucky ones. In Haiti, people, the poor ones, often die of illnesses a course of ampicillin can take care of.
The surgeon had to use skin from behind her ear as a graft and wasn't sure it would take.
It did. The operation was a huge success. Convalescence, though, 'bout killed both of us (me and Three, not the doctor.) She was terrified the whole time. The pain meds were good, but didn't mask all of the pain. She had a huge bandage over her ear. The graft site itched. I believe she was convinced, despite my repeated reassurances, that she was going to die in this strange house surrounded by this strange family that had done this inexplicable thing to her.
None of the words I carefully looked up in the Kreyol-English dictionary helped a bit.
We just had to live through it.
And so, this morning, I gave her some liquid motrin, a kiss, and instructions to move it carefully and gently as often as she thought of it.
Her neck is fine now.
Some day the rest of her will be too.
