Chandra's Journal

November 28, 2005 3:45 pm

Canon is in surgery right now. I’m trying to hold it together in the PICU waiting room.

I hope and pray that this is God’s plan. How do I really know for sure?

It’s probably going to take 4-6 hours. That’s just about the time that I spend at school, an average work day for me. I could just pretend that I am teaching Kindergarten and Canon and Creed are at Rhonda’s house and I’m going to pick them up in just a few hours.

More than four years ago, I sat in a tiny waiting room while Amberly was having surgery to close a duct in her heart. I think it took about 45 minutes and it absolutely felt like forever.

My eyes want to close. My neck and shoulders hurt terribly. But I can’t rest.

5:00 pm

Jaymee came in to the waiting room to update us on what’s going on. She told us that they had the central line put in (an IV line in a vein close to his heart), he is on the ventilator, and has a tube in his nose to drain his stomach. Everything has gone perfectly so far, eliciting a deep breath from all of us.

She brought his blanket out to us. His “bah-bee” that he would prefer to have permanently attached to his person was such a welcome sight to me. I wanted to hold it so badly, but at the same time wanted Canon to have it close to him, too. It smells like him.

When I asked her if he had cried at all after they took him away, she said no. She giggled and said, “Actually, he was fascinated with the red light we put on his finger. He would wave it really slowly in front of his face. We decided he was feeling no pain!”

There are many people in this room, “waiting” on something. Most of them I think are just waiting their turn to go in and see their family members. One grandfather was telling us about his granddaughter, Dakota, a five year-old with Cystic Fibrosis in PICU right now in kidney failure. So many lives. Such a big God.

Chandra