Dear Alex, Expectations.

15th August 2013

Dear Alex,

Holidays, playing days, long days, never a minute's peace days! Picnic days, happy days, breaking up kids arguing days, hearing them playing and stopping and breathing in the smile that spreads across my soul for how blessed I am days...Most days there are seven or more kids here one way or another, they traipse in and out, laughing, plotting, being very sweet! I cook a vat of Quorn Bolognese as they all play together, and I know how much I will miss having the house full of neighbours' kids. It's a lovely little part of the town where I live, with supportive friendly neighbours whom I will miss...especially their kids!

I suppose I am making headway on the packing, although it seems never ending- the de cluttering, the loading the car for trips to charity shops, extra bin fulls, trips to see you, entertainment for the kids- cooking, picnics, clearing, meetings at the Care home for organising the transfer, planning out letter-by-letter all the intricate details of your transition. In amongst all this, I had confirmed the other day that the operation we have been waiting for is on the 17th September. Nineteen months we have been waiting for this operation- to put back in the bone flap in your skull.

There is no postponing it, we will travel back up for it, so I am trying to arrange childcare, coming back up, staying somewhere, and the use of a car if I come back up with you in the ambulance, as I will need to be by your side, constantly. You will be in hospital, if all goes well, for 7-10 days.

To be honest I am petrified. 

There is evidence to suggest repairing the bone flap helps greatly with regaining cognitive functions and neurological advances. This is because it readjusts the fluid pressure around the brain- 'normalising' this. 

Your head will look normal too, once the swelling goes down.

It does carry risks.

And I will try harder not to entertain these, because each time I think about sending you off to an operation, tubes in, prostrate on a stretcher, it jolts a wave of queasiness, unrest, unease, I feel light headed, and my heart pounds.

I must try harder to trust the Most High in this- He has brought you thus far...

 It will be like the final 'maybe this will be it, the thing that miraculously helps you advance...' will be done, and I don't want to have those expectations, they weigh too heavily on the half of me that left when you had your accident.

I will try not to have expectations, try not to think about the risks...

I feel sick even writing this.

And I wish that voice, that one saying 'what if it all goes amazingly, and it fixes him more than you ever imagined' would stop.

me xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx