As some of you know, our youngest boy had surgery yesterday to fix a problem with his bladder. The surgery itself went well, and now "T" and I are staying at Mary Bridge Children's Hospital in Tacoma for a few days as he recovers.

Today started off pretty well. T seemed in good spirits, but by about 1:30PM he started to hurt. Between the catheter and the surgical site, coupled with a lower dosage in the epidural, he couldn't fight back the pain as bravely as he had been. And he's tough for a 5 1/2 year old. This is the same kid who cracked his head open last year and took 3 staples to the noggin without batting an eye.

Oh, he tried to play it off at first, but a parent knows when something isn't right. Five minutes later... Waterworks. Big time. And of course it was when all the nursing staff was busy, so he had to wait about 10 minutes before anyone could check on him.

That's the worst part as a parent, not being able to do anything but hold his hand, kiss his forehead, and try to reassure him that help is on its way. (But not knowing *when* it will come) It's hard to keep your cool when your littlest one is howling in pain and there's nothing you can do to help. I'm an Aries, we're action takers, but in this situation I'm effectively neutered, so it's doubly worse inside my head.

Luckily our nurse, Amy, was able to break away from her other chore and get to T. He wanted to use the bathroom, but once he got out of the bed the pain hit a new high and didn't stop. So there we are, Amy and I, trying to wrangle him onto a toilet with a bajillion wires coming off of him, and all the moving and streching is taking its toll. And that's when the worst fear and pain of all hits him.

I won't get too explicit, but let's just say blood isn't supposed to come out of certain places and it freaked his freak. The nurse and I were both a concerned, to say the least, but we knew we had to fight through it. We finally got T back in bed, but not without a lot of tears and begging me to make the owies go away, and other words you don't want to hear your child ever say again because you, too, just want to magically make it all go away. Any parent would gladly make a deal with the devil just to make it all better in those moments.

I'm happy to report, however, that after all that, the pain started to subside and he slumped down in the bed and took a much needed nap. (Which is where the attached picture came from) And instead of breaking down in front of him, I blog about it, because the last thing he needs is to see his father crying.

Doctors and nurses keep coming in, checking on him, and telling me everything is OK, so I'll just continue sitting next to him and keeping him as comfortable as possible. And crossing my fingers and hoping we'll be home for Christmas.