Wish it were me
Bright halogen lights shine above and a sterile white tiled floor stretches beneath. “Surekha, do you have a pet at home?’” asks the blue plastic capped man in theatre scrubs as he holds the mask snug around the child’s face. The child is slight but long of limb, seemingly older than her four plus years. Held tight in her mother’s arms, her eyes roll back and close as the gas seeps into her lungs. Her head rolls back limply unto the mother’s shoulder. She is unconscious.
The child is mine and I am that mother. This is the day surgery at Flinders Eye Centre, Adelaide. Medical practitioners call her condition a chalazion. I didn’t know that such a condition existed before my vivacious four-year-old got one. Initially it looked like a small sty beneath her right eyelid. Then another one appeared under her left eyelid. The family GP recommended an eye ointment and a dose of oral antibiotics plus gentle massage of the affected area. Getting an active pre-schooler to sit still for five minutes daily while all this was administered was hard enough yet we followed doctor’s instructions religiously for two weeks.
Nothing worked. The lump under her right eyelid ballooned into a walnut sized angry red mass. A referral to an ophthalmologist was finally given. “Dr Taranath is overseas for the next three weeks,” her receptionist said over the phone as my heart plummeted. What now? I ring back the GP’s clinic in desperation but apparently Dr Taranath is the best in the business so we should sit tight.
Three long weeks pass and each day my little girl endures questions and comments from alarmed acquaintances and even her kindergarten friends. “Oh my, what’s that”, “it’s a sty you should get it looked at”, “you should take her to a specialist,” the list of well-intentioned but misguided advice and comments never cease. I grow tired of explaining that it’s not a sty it’s a chalazae and yes we are waiting on the specialist. Even passers-by and shop keepers feel compelled to dole out home remedies such as rubbing gold on the bump. Sometimes I catch my girl standing in front of the mirror just staring at her face. “What’s wrong with my eye mummy?” she asks. I’m amazed at how stoically she bears this up with a maturity belying her four and half years when other parents and children in parks and play areas stare.
“How’re you feeling mum? Are you strong enough to put her down on the bed?” the hospital anaesthetist’s voice breaks my reverie. I lay my unconscious girl gently down on the theatre bed. “You can go now, we’ll bring her out to you when it’s over” says the nurse. I walk out to the waiting room where my husband sits nervously reading a magazine. An elderly Italian couple bring their adult son into the eye surgery’s waiting room. The son is obviously differently abled. The parents lovingly guide him to the theatre preparation area where he is readied for eye surgery. Once he’s wheeled in, his elderly mother strikes up a conversation with me. “I have five children, this one, he’s the youngest…a lot of problem with him”, she says sadly. “The other’s they are very smart, one geologist, one lawyer, one she doing management, one is accountant.”
That’s wonderful I say and ask what operation her son is here for. Amongst his many health problems, the boy now has a severe cataract in his left eye. Today Dr Taranath is trying to save the eye but if the operation is unsuccessful it will have to be removed. “We are old, who will look after him when we are gone?” laments the elderly father. I can’t imagine what I’d do if I was in their position. Would I be strong enough to nurse and love such a child for their life’s duration?
The nurses wheel my daughter out into the post-operative rest room. As she comes to her senses, she flays her limbs violently and cries out repeatedly. Her eyes are swollen shut, the lashes are thick with congealed blood and a bloodied gauze bandage covers her right eye. My husband cradles her in his arms as she cries out, “I want to go home, I want to go home” in between ragged breaths and sobs. I kiss her hands in a futile gesture of comfort and say that we are right next to her, it’ll be ok, she’ll be fine now. Slowly her cries subside and she settles into a restless doze in her father’s arms. Dr Taranath comes by to explain the aftercare she’ll need. Nurses come by to ask if my daughter would like an icy pole a treat she usually never refuses.
“No”, she says vehemently, “I want to go home!” a sure sign that she’s truly upset. The icy pole melts slowly on the table as she once again dozes off. Seeing your child in pain and being able to do absolutely nothing about it is one of the hardest things a parent can go through. What could I have done to head this off? Over the last month I’ve trawled through countless medical websites and books on chalazions. “A chalazion is very common and usually goes away without the necessity of surgery,” states one medical website. Not in our case unfortunately. On online forums, parents of children prone to develop chalazions recommend washing the eyelids with mild baby shampoo every night. One even suggests using a warm compress on the eyes daily to ward off the condition. After what we’ve been through in the past weeks, I’d try both these suggestions rather than see my child go through a procedure like she went through this morning. Don’t get me wrong, the doctor was highly skilled, the nurses were attentive and we couldn’t have asked for a better anaesthetist. But this was still my child on that operating table and that is a moment I wouldn’t wish for any parent.
“Icy pole?” a small and weak voice inquires as she comes round once again. My husband and I laugh in relief as my daughter lifts her head off the pillow to lick the lemonade icy pole. Her eyes are narrow slits and matted with blood but if her appetite’s back, things might just be looking up at last.
