After explaining to our daughter that I was going to hospital for surgery soon, trying to soothe the resulting anxiety beast pretty much brought us to our knees. So, we reached out to her school teacher and asked for help.
I have to say that, despite any conflicts we had with the teacher she had last year, THIS year’s teacher is amazing. She gave us links to outside agencies that would be able to provide support, and took our Fae aside during school hours to explain what was going on.
She also made what we found out was called a ‘social story’: a laminated booklet containing simple pictures and sentences explaining, from my daughter’s point of view, what was going to happen. It explained that her mummy was going into hospital; that she was having an operation to make her better; and that the doctors and nurses would look after her and make her well.
It went on to show photos of her grandparents and father, as people who would help both her and her mother – by taking her to and from school and clubs, and helping her mum recover. It gave her details of how long to expect mum to be in hospital, and how long the recovery would be – all with little pictures and, where appropriate, the photos of her family inserted. Finally, it gave her ideas of how she could help her mother recover, and what she could do to make life easier.
She clutched this thing like it was a bible, and kept referring to it. She was very happy when my mother arrived before the operation, as this was stated in the book. Seeing that reality was following The Book’s course of events gave her faith in the “map” it presented, and it was almost like watching the anxiety melt away as she began to trust there was a clear and planned pathway that we were now following along.
She still didn’t approve, and was unhappy with the idea of me not being there for one night, but she was no longer so worried about it, more like she was put out about not having the requisite number of cuddles and stories. It was a game changer, and something that I will be using in future if we know there are disruptions to routine coming up.
The change between the night of my operation and the morning after were also stark. I managed to FaceTime her before breakfast in the morning to wish her happy birthday. (Yes, my surgery was timed just that well!) She promptly talked me through the new toy animals that had arrived with her latest magazine, and explained that she and daddy ate their own body weight in popcorn the night before whilst watching a movie. What’s more, after barely eating for an entire week, she devoured breakfast.
So, the relief was real. At this point, as a public service announcement, I would like to say from my experience it was not a good idea (in fact it may have been a decidedly bad one) to attend a birthday party for a manic 7 year old less than 24 hours after having a hysterectomy.
Lives and learns.
Raising the Modern Fae 