Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Never Stop Advocating For Your Kids

As parents, we are constantly balancing when to step in and help our kids and when to let them figure it out for themselves.

When parenting young adults, that balance becomes a little trickier.

When parenting young adults with a history of mental health and substance abuse issues, that balance is like walking a tightrope twenty stories high and constantly pushing the other person off yet at the same time pulling them back on.

I realized today that no matter how old your child is, he is still your child and you never stop advocating for them.

For two weeks now, all through pre-op procedures and appointments with specialists, Kid 1 has been open about his medical issues. All the trained medical professionals assured us it wouldn't be an issue in today's surgery.

At 5am this morning as he met one OR nurse after another, he told them what prescriptions he regularly takes. They all said it's not an issue.

Literally minutes away from being wheeled away into the OR, I said to the anesthesiologist, "you do know he takes a monthly dose of ..."

The anesthesiologist closed my sons chart and told everyone to immediately stop.

As it turns out, there was a contraindication with my sons medication, and one that very easily could have been harmful in surgery.

I am eternally grateful to Sean ( I'm pretty sure that was his name) for listening to us today. For having the knowledge to know when medications are an issue and for forcing a small delay into surgery today so they could come up with a medically safer plan.

I'm not a very churchy person, but I believe God put Sean in that operating room today for my son.

I also know that although I was unsure about speaking up for fear of my young adult child thinking I was taking control or not trusting him to take care of himself, I did the right thing in butting in to the doctors conversation.

Today's surgery may have been routine to them, but not to me or my child.

And no matter how old they get, or how old I get, I'll never stop advocating for my kids.

1 comment:

  1. Thank goodness you remembered that your son was taking that medication! I agree that we have to be advocates for not only our children, but for our parents, and for ourselves. I wish your son a very speedy recovery from surgery.

    Julie

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