I write this from Rylynn’s bedside at 4:45am. The first night after surgery is brutal, no way around it. It’s all about trying to figure out pain control. I’ll tell you, that is not as easy as it sounds. It’s nurses coming in every two hours to check vitals and test the feeling in her legs, it’s the nausea that comes with anesthesia wearing off. It’s the alarms and beeps and endless sounds of a hospital at night. It’s doing anything we can to keep Rylynn comfortable and not always knowing how to do that because at the crux of the matter, she just had multiple bones broken and reconstructed and that’s just going to hurt.
I knew from the previous 3 surgeries that the first night is usually the longest and the worst, but again was reminded how truly helpless a person can feel. Watching her cry in pain while I just stand there and hold her hand and kiss her forehead is truly terrible. I watch the clock and think “we just need to make it through the next minute. We just need to make it through this next wave pain before the new meds kick in.” I’m literally taking it breath by breath.
I just wanted to record this long night, remember the desperate prayers I plead to God on behalf of my daughter. Come Lord Jesus, be in this room. Help us get through the next minute. Help us rest through this hour. Jesus be near. Jesus be near, Jesus be near.
Dawn will come in a couple of hours, I’ll love seeing the sun and know God’s mercy is new every morning. Beeps and alarms and pain are not quite as scary in the daylight as they are in the dark. I want the morning to come, to watch the sky turn pink and hear the birds sing outside my 3rd floor window. But we don’t get to fast forward. Time marches on with its same cadence regardless of how hard I try to will it to march a little faster.
I’m breathing, Rylynn is breathing, Jesus is near, and his mercies are new every morning. We just have to wait for it to come and relieve us of the dark.
“Baby the sun will rise, no matter how long the night.” -JJ Heller
Adventures in Hip Dysplasia 