Wednesday, August 5, 2009

The Hills Are Alive...

Well, actually it's our backyard. Alive with the sound of music, that is. We've got our antique boom box going with the girls' current favorite song: "I Like Yaks." They have their swim suits on and are making the rounds between the sandbox cafe and sliding into the pool.

This freewheeling summer fun has been intensified over the past two weeks. Though Maya does occasionally ask about attending her morning summer camp for another week, I've tried to keep these last days of her tonsil-filled life unscheduled.

Running through Tamarack Park on a prairie walk.

We've done a few official adventure days to new parks, but mostly we have traveled the secret trails at the heart of Hansen Park (about half a mile of overlapping trails in the tiny woods behind our house). We've spent hours pretending to be dinosaurs fleeing hunters, lost farm animals, or space travelers. That would be all three of us playing pretend.... and after living here for four years, we now run into people we know at the park.

I think I have a reputation...

Oh well.

I'm doing the best I can to make up for the fact that Maya's next week will be miserable. The poor kid is having her tonsils out.

I know, I know. For half of you, it's no big deal. Minor surgery to prevent a bevvy of winter sickness. For the other half, those like-minded parents who find accepting the current vaccine regiment torturous (though most of us still follow them), you are probably giving us the stink eye. You are subjecting her to an unnecessary procedure? Aren't doctors moving away from jerking out tonsils for no reason? How interventionist!

Believe me, I've looked and looked for a reason not to do this to my girl. Surgery is scary. Honestly, I'm so anti-extraneous medical procedures that I battled three different nurses, one posing as a neonatal specialist, to avoid getting preventative antibiotics while in unmedicated transition labor. I only gave up when the nurse (who later took a tongue-lashing from my furious doctor) threatened not to let me keep Elle with me after delivery... at which point I submitted. Two years later (almost) my doctor is still apologizing for the bullying medical establishment.

Obviously, I don't want to put Maya through surgery unnecessarily, but I can't find a reason not to have the surgery. The potential for complications is tiny, and the relative usefulness of tonsils is almost entirely erased by the problems they constantly giver her. She sleeps poorly, snores loudly, breathes loudly, had four bouts of strep/scarlet fever last year, two episodes of tonsillitis (the last hasn't completely gone away), and countless colds.

Maya is utterly worn out after our expeditions to the park. Elliot enthusiastically gives up her stroller, even offering to push big sister (this is after she sat in a puddle). The doctor assures us Maya will have more energy post-surgery, when her breathing improves.

So wish us luck. We're living it up while we can, and preparing her as much as possible for the idea of what next Tuesday will bring (with great emphasis on popsicles and ice cream).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your Dad had his tonsils out only one month after his 2nd birthday. Greatest thing ever happened. You
will be amazed at how much better she will feel. Clayton ate toast the first morning home!!
Good luck.
Grandma Bobbie

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