Stress, Worry and Understanding

I know there are people out there who are going through far worse than our family is right now and I know how incredibly lucky Dad2BabyInsomniac is to have not done anything worse but I am starting to find the whole situation incredibly stressful.

We went to see him in hospital yesterday and were told that his operation would be today and that hopefully he would be out by tomorrow or Friday so that is what I spent the day expecting, only to be told this afternoon that the swelling on his ankle hasn’t gone down enough to operate yet. They can’t tell us when he will be ready, whether or not they are going to move him closer or when he can come home.

I just hate all the not knowing, even once he gets home there is going to be months of not knowing how bad the damage will be. He has been told that he has done some really serious damage to his ankle. The way he fell of his bike meant that he fell from 20ft in the air onto his feet and the pressure forced his ankle up into his leg breaking his fibula and totally shattering his ankle. He has no cartilage left and as a result will not be able to run again, will have severe arthritis in a few years and will eventually need to get his foot locked meaning he will have no movement in his ankle.

I KNOW it could have been worse but it also could have been a whole lot better. Maybe they are giving him the worse case scenario and things won’t be that bad but if the cartilage is gone then there is no way of it coming back so it is not going to be a great outcome either way.

I just feel totally shit tonight, for myself, for him and for poor little Iyla who understands far too much for her age.

I don’t usually like to tell people how much she talks as I don’t want to sound like one of those parents who go on about how amazing their kids are but she just literally understands and can say everything. Which makes this all so hard. I forget that she takes in every word I am saying when I’m on the phone, not to mention that she must be picking up on my emotions regarding the whole thing. On Monday night she looked up at me and said ‘Daddy, hurt leg. Bike. Sad’ and just stared into my eyes – I hadn’t told her what had happened, she had obviously just listened to me talking. And from that moment on I tried to be happy for her. Having kids gives you a kind of fighting spirit, you have to just get on with things.

But tonight it caught up with me. My head hurts and I just feel so stressed. Iyla wouldn’t go to bed, I took her out then tried to put her back and ended up sitting next to her cot. She was hysterical. We told her yesterday about Daddy’s naughty bike and she was lying there with tears rolling down her cheeks shouting out ‘naughty bike, very dangerous, hurt leg, fix it, cuggle daddy’. Bless her little heart, it was so upsetting to see her like that.

I can deal with all the not knowing of the future but I just want him to get his big operation out of the way so that he can come home to a big girl and a little girl who both absolutely adore him.