I don't remember most of what happened to me when I was having my operations as a child. I don't remember the stress, the nights spent praying for my safety or the days spent at my bedside. That was reserved for my parents.
My parents are great people; they went through so much when I was a child and the only way I feel I can repay them is to live my life to the full and take every opportunity that I am given. They allowed me to live as full a life as possible and I think this helped a lot for both them and me.
So many parents out there must worry about the effects CHD is having on their child when actually the more bad stuff they can get out of the way as a child the less it affects the child later in life.
It may seem like it is never going to end but in many cases children are incredibly brave and deal amazingly well with emotional stress.
Time tends to heal children with CHD better than it heals their parents and that is why I believe there should be a better support network for parents of children, not that what we have is not good, just that it could be better.
posted by worsthotels @ 2:36 pm
2 Comments:
Hey Paul
It is somewhat reassuring that you don't remember much .. this is something we do think about with further surgery required for our toddler (now 3 1/2)at some unknown stage when the pressures build too high due to the stenosis of his mitral valve.
We are quite casual parents, perhaps a bit too casual at times and we see many parents who are doing it tough in the emotional stakes. It is sad to see sitautions where either single parents or only one parent can be present where the child is having surgery and recovering .. that would be very stressful.
I hope CHD teenagers follow the mould you came out of as we have often joked CJ better be a good teenager as he has put us through enough stressful times with the initial life saving surgery and then the surprise heart failure and critical condition little eposide, not to mention fundoplication numbers 1 and 2, cardiac catheter and 2nd open heart surgery. Alright I'll stop my whinging now and get back to the point ... which I seem to have totally lost.
Interesting post tonight and having just returned from the hospital yet again (unbelievable since we hadn't been to Emergency/Casualty for 15 months and we have now been 3 times in two weeks)it is nice to have a reminder that things do get better.
Till next time
ciao now
www.beatinghearts4kids.blogspot.com
I agree with you on this one. I spent months at a time in hospital when I was a child in the 1960's and early 1970's and my memory of that time is not too bad. I remember a couple of sad times, that I wouldn't want to detail too much here, but in the main, they are happy memories that I have. I remember the wheelchair races along the corridors. I remember the fun activities in the school room. One of my treasured memories is being weighed by two student nurses when I was recovering from surgery. My legs were like jelly and I couldn't stand on the scales. So, one carried me and weighed both myself and herself and then she had to weigh herself to take away her weight and find the difference for my weight. They were laughing and joking loads, as to which of them would be weighed and give their own weight away. It was a very minor incident, but I remember it very well, probably because the two nurses were young and laughing and enjoying themselves. The scales were also in another part of the hospital, so I probably enjoyed the diversion of going out of the cubicle I was in. The stress for our parents must have been difficult.
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