Surgical
operations for children are a parent’s worst nightmare. There are so many
factors to consider outside of the obvious logistics of date and time. With the
odd exception, most children’s wards are extremely well versed in the art of
getting children into surgery, but that doesn’t account for the weeks leading
up to the event, where mum and dad have the insurmountable task of persuading
Little Johnny, that they know best and this thing is definitely going to
happen.
All
of my children at some point have had a surgical procedure which required them
to have a general anaesthetic. Some of them were older and needed emergency
help, but two of my girls underwent surgery before the age of three and one of
them, more than once.
I’m
an author now, but back then, I was a mother with a love of books and stories
and I used that to my advantage. Meal times were sacred in our house and we
tried most nights to eat as a family. I’m not quite sure how it started, but
while everyone else ate dessert, I would read to the family, not just children’s
stories but the classics too. I read to them on long car journeys, boring waits
in the car and once in the emergency waiting room while my husband listened
avidly with a broken hand propped on his knee. Wet holidays, appointments and
any time that we could all be potentially bored, out would come the book from
my bag and the story would continue.
Coming
up to my daughter’s first surgery, I decided how I would handle it. Our family
code was ‘no surprises’ and we tried hard to stick to that, wherever possible.
Big changes would always be talked through, even with the littlies and everyone
would know where they sat within the grand plan. It meant that even emergencies
were less frightening because someone would be around to think on their feet
and there would be a plan, even if it took a little while coming. Weeks before
the operation, I started to read an Enid Blyton book called, The Magic Faraway
Tree. The story deals with the inhabitants of a magic tree and a family of
children who find it and become friends with the characters. At the top of the
tree is a world in which the ‘Land’ changes every day. The children visit the
different Lands and have exciting adventures and that is primarily what the
book is about. They never know which land will be at the top, but they must be
back down into the tree before the land changes, or they’ll be stuck there.
My
children loved the story and really bought into it. It wasn’t a great leap of
faith for them to believe that when my daughter went into surgery, she was
actually visiting the Faraway Tree and would be able to go into the Land at the
top and bring back gifts for her siblings. The instructions for that child
would occupy everyone’s mind in the lead up to the operation.
“Moonface
and Silky will be waiting for you at the bottom of the tree and they’ll help
you climb the branches.”
“Don’t
look in the Angry Pixie’s window. He gets cross. He’ll tip his teapot over you.”
“Watch
out for the Washer Woman on the top branch who throws her laundry water down
the tree. You don’t want to get wet.”
“The
Saucepan Man will help you if you get lost or scared.”
“The
Sandman will help you to sleep and then find Moonface and Silky with you.”
My
husband and I would put our heads together and decide which Land would be at
the top. We had the Land of Sweets and Chocolate, the Land of Surprises, the
Land of Toys, the Land of Gifts and very recently as residents of New Zealand,
the Land Called England.
Once
the Land was declared, via a fake letter which would arrive through the post
from Moonface and Silky, the child would excitedly go round everyone asking
what they wanted to have brought back from the Land at the top of the Faraway
Tree. Someone who could write would follow behind with a pen and paper, writing
it down for Mummy or Daddy, who would then have to buy the stuff. None of my
children ever called it ‘going into hospital,’ it was always “I’m going up the
Faraway Tree.”
Thankfully
my parents brought into the tale and my mother would always help by reinforcing
the illusion. “I want to know what it’s like when you come back from the
Faraway Tree. Make sure you phone me and tell me all about it.”
On
the day, it was last minute helpful instructions from everyone and off to
surgery they were wheeled, a special cloth bag that my mother made with a draw
string to keep the goodies in, firmly clutched in their fingers. The hardest
part was getting that cloth bag back off the nursing staff so that we could
secretly fill it and get it put back before the child came round. It also had
to be done sleight of hand so that the other children didn’t see.
That’s
the stuff that nightmares are made of, not the fact that the poor child was
having a general anaesthetic and surgery. We were too busy stuffing things in a
cloth bag like bank robbers and wishing it was a bigger, wider, more oddly
shaped bag.
Once
when something went awry at Lincoln County Hospital and we weren’t allowed into
Recovery to be there when my daughter woke up, she was so afraid that she wet
herself and came back up to the ward distraught. Most of that wing of the
hospital heard her howling along the corridor and it was a dreadful moment for
everyone. Until her three-year-old brother pointed at the puddle she sat in and
said, “Oh no! You looked in the Angry Pixie’s window didn’t you?”
"Yes!”
she wailed and that was it. Over. No trauma, no embarrassment. Finished.
The
bag was opened, always by the patient and the list examined to make sure
everything was correct. Thank goodness we never stuffed up. Things were handed
out, admired, the patient thanked and life returned to normal, until next time.
There
are a number of books in the series of The Magic Faraway Tree and I think we
went through all of them, some of them twice. It took the fear and the sting
out of something that could be quite traumatic, especially for a two-year-old.
I know there are families who deal with things clinically. The child knows the
absolute truth and that’s fine. We all parent differently and find ways that
work for us. For my family - this worked.
I
was reminded of The Magic Faraway Tree recently when my seventeen-year-old
daughter needed surgery. We sat in a packed waiting room, corralled like cattle
when she turned to me and sighed. “I wish I still thought I was going up the
Magic Faraway Tree; it was so much more exciting and it took the fear away.”
A
quick text to my husband saw him nipping to The Best of British shop in
Rototuna and grabbing some English delights, things we can’t routinely get
here. The special bag is long gone, perhaps in my parents’ loft back in
England, but this time, a carrier bag did just fine. My daughter smiled after
her surgery when she saw what the Land Called England had supplied. Polos,
Snowballs, Curly-Wurly and other things once taken for granted in a very
different life.
The
items from the Land had to be posted to siblings who no longer share the same
house, to Hamilton, Palmerston North, to adults living lives in other places.
But they still smiled, enjoyed their treats and remembered.
Parents remember - everything can be got through, with a little imagination.
#positivethinking #readtokids #bebravelittleone
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