Day fifteen: Preferred guest status

Tomorrow, you're getting a tracheotomy.

Aw, for crying out loud.

The hospital called Asia all casual-like, about "the surgery" tomorrow, asking her about your history with anaesthesia, do you have any allergies, blah, blah, blah, and she said, "WHAT surgery?"

We seriously didn't know anything about it. When I called back after talking with Asia, your nurse Gill said that, yep, it probably seemed pretty sudden because they kind of make the call and then, boom. An anaesthesiologist is calling you.

So, why a tracheotomy? Basically, Daddio, it's a function of how long your lungs are still going to need help. You're not over your pneumonia yet, so it's sure those lungs need assistance for as long as that takes to clear, plus however much longer they need just to get strong again. Clearly, you still need the ventilator.

Okay. Well, right now, the ventilator tube is attached to a tube that goes in your mouth, past your teeth, over your tongue, and down your throat. It is taped and tied into place, with stuff that digs into sides of your mouth, sometimes causing you to bleed. And every time they need to get down there, or if something slips (as it now has, causing a cuff leak, which is making this noise that I know must be driving you crazy) they have to wiggle and shove and your airways swell, and, ugh. Dad. It's friggin' uncomfortable. And it's one thing to put up with a situation like that for two weeks. But two or four or six more?

Basically, Dad, you can consider the tracheotomy an amenity the hospital provides for "preferred" guests who need the ventilator and have been invited to stay longer than two weeks.

How's that? Perfectly pukey? Me, too. I know that you would hate this. But given the alternative, we are all for it. The tube situation now is one that is like breathing through a straw, I'm told. And the new situation for you will be one in which you can breathe much easier and more comfortably.

So, why wouldn't they just do this from the get-go? If you only needed the ventilator for two weeks and they were able to begin weaning you off in order to extubate, then it would've been a needless surgery.

Tracheotomy.

That word and all the other words that have crept into my vocabulary can all go piss up a rope. I have even, much to my chagrin, begun to shorten them. "They're going to trach him." "He'll be on the vent for a while." Getting the hang of a subculture's lingo means you either want to be a part of it, or have accepted that you are. Like my use of corporate lingo, when I say things like, "moving forward," "add value," or "net net." Eek.

But you continue to improve. With a temperature of 38.3 when we left this evening, I am encouraged.

I thought on the way home about how you decorate the Christmas tree. When I was younger, I remember wanting to get right to the ornaments. They were so beautiful, all those antiques of Mimi's and Boppa's, and I wanted to put them on as soon as possible. Especially the ones that had the little fan inside. "Well, first we have to get the lights on. Or there'll be no heat to rise up into that ornament and turn the fan." Great. Let's get the lights on then! "Well, first, let's wrap this string of lights around the trunk."

Uh. Huh?

But, you'd get to it. And patiently twirl a string of small white lights 'round and 'round in the innermost parts of the tree. All that rustling in there would get the pine smell going in the living room. I'd begin to relax. One of us would be steadily feeding you the string of lights.

And I'd be glad that it was taking so long. Because maybe there was hot chocolate, or there'd be music playing, or we'd all be chatting. The moment was lasting. It was becoming a memory and not just a happening. Soon enough, the trunk was wrapped, and we'd graduate to weaving lights onto the branches like normal people do. Then, maybe garland. But finally, it was time for the ornaments.

And oh, how many places we had to hang all of those ornaments! Because you had lit the interior of the tree, there was a whole other world in there to decorate. Little havens, settings for perfect vignettes created by the criss-crossing of pine needles and branches. It was illuminated from the inside out. No matter where we chose to put an ornament, it was assured to take on the glint of Christmas magic and reflect the warmth of a tree decorated together and carefully. Thoughtfully.

Somewhere, deep inside, you are wrapping lights around the trunk. And I promise, from this day forward, to stop worrying about the ornaments for right now. To hang on, give you time while you heal in deeper places than any of us can see or even know. And no matter what you are decorated with when this is all said and done -- new skin or new scars, working or impaired lungs -- they will all have a place. As you, too, will be illuminated from the inside out.

We will just keep feeding you the light.