I wanted to participate in Sleeper54's Halloween write-off, but it just isn't the same for me this year. Ordinarily, Halloween is my favorite non-holiday day of the year. I always get into the Halloween spirit. I love to dress up, and in the past few years, I've gotten to take my 4-year-old son trick-or-treating. He didn't really know much about Halloween, but on Halloween day, he got to go trick-or-treating with my best friend's daughter, Morgan, and get lots of candy, and he loved it. This year, he's ready for Halloween. He knows what it is, and he wants to be Batman. He can't wait to trick-or-treat with Morgan, but unfortunately, he doesn't know what lies ahead...
I sit here in tears as I write this. My sweet, innocent, precious 4-year-old son has an ear tumor. He is scheduled to have surgery on October 30, 2003 in Nashville, TN, which is a 4 1/2 to 5 hour drive from here.
I stayed home with my son for the first 3 years of his life, but when I went back to school, he began staying with my aunt-in-law in her home-daycare. I was a little leery of putting him in daycare, but the pediatrician recommended that he go to daycare a couple of days a week to learn some social skills. Since it was a relative, and only a couple of days a week, I thought it wouldn't be a big deal.
Unfortunately, he started catching a lot of colds from being around the other kids, and those colds led to ear infections. He had about 5 infections between January and June. Then one day during the summer I noticed that he was unable to hear when he held the phone to his left ear. His pediatrician referred me to the ear, nose, and throat specialist in the area. He had 2 different hearing tests on 2 different occasions, and the doctor was unsure of what was causing the problem. He thought it was part conductive and part neural, so he finally ordered a CT scan and sent those results to a doctor in Nashville. This doctor in Nashville called me, described the ear tumor to me, and told me it needed to come out. He told me that the tumor is benign. He explained to me that it sounds worse than it is, but it would require same-day surgery. He said the procedure should take 1-1 ½ hours, and my son would be able to go home the same day.
Unfortunately, I was told that my son will not feel like trick-or-treating after he has his surgery. I have no idea how he's going to feel, but I imagine he'll feel even less like trick-or-treating after a 4 ½ -5 hour drive from Nashville after having surgery the day before Halloween. Nonetheless, I bought him his Batman costume, and I plan to dress up as well. I suppose we'll have a family-style Halloween just for him, even if it occurs sometime after Halloween. I just pray that all goes well. I just wish I could take his place. Thanks for reading.
