As a father and a husband, there’s nothing harder than having to watch your child suffer and your wife weep and not being able to console either one. Over the last few days, I’ve had to watch both and even though I know that I will have to do it again one day, I still have to hope that these occurrences will be few and far between.
On Monday afternoon we discovered that the culprit in our baby’s breathing (and subsequently, feeding) problems has been a cyst on the base of her tongue. So not to prolong her suffering any longer, we scheduled an operation for that evening. The next five hours were spent trying to console a hungry 7 week old (she couldn’t eat until after surgery) that couldn’t breathe very well and watching my wife cry uncontrollably over the thought of having our precious little one “put under” for surgery worrying that she would not wake up from it.
Then came the moment that we had to hand our baby girl over to a complete stranger putting every ounce of trust that we could muster in the abilities of this person and those that would be assisting.
After a couple of hours – that seemed like days – the surgery was over and our little Emmi was being wheeled back into the hospital room still asleep, but in better condition than she had been in weeks.
Now the exhausted, suffering face that you see above has been replaced by a content, bright-eyed one that can finally breathe normally and eat comfortably. It’s times like these that life is truly put into perspective. There is nothing more important than the health of family and when someone in that family is suffering, nothing in this world matters more than getting them healthy again.