Two Carat Kidney Stone

 I am having a very bad dream. In the dream a tiny supernova, a mininova if you may, is blooming in my lower right side. Heat waves radiate outward into my ribs and lower back. 

The pain, as they say, is exquisite. What a strange way to describe something so deeply unpleasant.

I start waking up but still feel so tired and I think to myself, maybe it will pass soon and I can go back to sleep.

What time is it anyway?

The babe had skipped her midday nap and we'd gone to bed just before 19:00. I have learned the hard way to sleep pretty much as soon as the baby sleeps because you never know when you might have to cut your night's rest short to give a child medicine/freshly squeezed pomegranate juice/avocado-prawn cocktails/play dress up at midnight or charge to casualties because of a sudden high fever.

The mininova stays put, burning and stinging and stabbing into my ribs.

Glancing at the clock I see it's only just shy of 21:00 but the night was dark my friends. The night often is darkest just before a supernova...I bet.

I stagger up and towards the medicine box. I have a special little medicine first aid container but who has time to place things neatly into special containers?

Not I. Under the bathroom sink I have a fraying cardboard box chock-full of nearly empty bottles of Nurofen, old plasters, leaking cough syrup and pediatric Iliadin.

Tommie is sitting on the bed, clicking away at the mouse and doing his best I-am-pretending-to-do-something-important-but-actually-I-am-mucking-about-with-my-little-crypto-games impersonation.

"I am having very much bad pain. Do you have the Buscopan?"

"I think so, why?"

"Well gimme. My appendix is bursting"

"Are you sure it's not just a poop?"

"No, I'm not. I mean yes. I mean, just hand it over, already"

He finds it quite quickly for someone that has trouble finding things ever.

"Go stand by the fireplace, see if it helps?"

I crouch in front of the fire. The mininova doesn't give a shit and keeps supernova-ing.

"Well, I'm off to casualties, then"

"Want me to drive you?"

"Are you crazy? I don't have time to wait around for you to putter about getting dressed and looking for things. Appendix! Bursting! Stay here with the kids and await further instructions"

Driving to the hospital it occurs to me that apart from my appendix bursting and killing me, fainting behind the wheel might also be detrimental.

Despite my fraught with danger ride, I arrive at the emergency unit, where there is but one parking spot open. The reason, I presume, for it's openness, is because of its oblique angle and narrow access point.

It takes me about fifteen little forward/backward maneuvers but eventually I manage to park without pranging my or someone's else's car.

"Good evening. I am having much bad pain. Please help"

The lady at reception tells me to sit for a minute.

I do no such thing.

Instead I stand hunched to the right, groaning and drooling a little onto my shoulder while staring at her without blinking.

She seems unsettled enough to fetch a sister rather quickly.

The sister ushers me into a little room that I am familiar with by now. It is a novel experience being in it by myself instead of trying to hold onto a mad, bucking toddler, howling I AM LEGION! At the celing in a double voice.

"How's the pain, from one to ten?"

I consider the question. 

    1. Waking up from an emergency c-section - 7

    2. Pap-smear - 1

    3. Mammogram - 2

    4. Mashing your second toe into the wheel of a Checkers trolley - 9 

    5. Contractions - 27

"Maybe 8?"

The nurse seems suitably impressed.

The emergency care unit is busy but I am the only patient groaning and shuffling akwardly to a bed. People try to stare without me noticing and I feel a little thrill at being seen. Finally a bit of sympathy and recognition!

"I am going to put a drip in to start managing your pain" the lovely and beautiful nurse tells me.

I hate needles.

You know something is terribly wrong when the notion of a drip excites me.

I actively enjoy the feeling of the drip being placed, secured and opened.

Cool liquid runs up my arm and into my brain, telling it to shhhhhh....shhhh shhh shhhhhhhhh.

My brain complies but the mininova still flickers and sizzles in the distance.

"Hello, I am Dr Blah-Blah. What seems to be the problem?"

"Well hello Dr Blah-Blah! My appendix burst about an hour ago, you see Dr, and now I fear I might die from septic shock or whatever the hell happens when poop floods your system and whatnot"

"I see. Does it hurt when I do this, this and this"

"Yes, yes and oweeeeeee!"

"Judging by your symptoms and level of pain (ah the recognition) I suspect it's a kidney stone. I am sending you for a ct scan. Please sign here"

"That sounds fancy and expensive. What am I signing?"

"That if your medical aid doesn't cover the cost, you are responsible"

"But Dr. I haven't been responsible a day in my life ha-ha!"

The pain meds may have made me a bit devil may care.

"My savings have been depleted since Jan the 2nd. What if I am admitted? Will they pay then?"

"Yes, from the hospital benefits"

As I am wheeled to radiography, I utter one of the stranger prayers of my life.

"Dear God. Please make me sick enough to be admitted but not so sick that my children might have to be raised by an evil step-mother, whom as a follow up prayer I would like to be a porker in order for my soul to be at peace in the hereafter "

The scan is exciting and indeed fancy. I feel like I am in an episode of House and supposed to have a seizure so they can queue suspenseful music and shout at each other that I am flatlining or hemorrhaging or my tatto ink is being sucked out of my skin by magnets.

"You have a kidney stone and as far as kidney stones go, it's quite large. It probably will not pass on its own. We can either admit you and book a theater (operating not operatic) to remove it (thank you Lord!) Or send you home with a sieve and some elephant painkillers and see what happens (nooooooooo!).

"Although obviously I don't want to be admitted (lie), it might be the wiser choice, Dr"

"I agree. The sister will come give you some elephant painkillers and take you up to the wards"

"Thank you, Dr" sez me, the long-suffering patient and mother of two.

Higher Power - 1

Medical aid - 0

I keep up a steady stream of chatter as the beautiful, saintly nurse wheels me through gleaming corridors.

"So, what's your name? Love your hair. Will it count as racist if I do my hair like that? Either way, what's new in your life (squinting at name-tag), Goeloe-kie-lê?"

"Blahblressbloopbgraphêhla babba-sessie" she rattles off to a guy sitting in front of the glass entrance to ward whatever.

"I'm kind of hungry. And thirsty! PARCHED actually. Any grapetizer around? Maybe a virgin mojito? Okay, I'll settle for a frappuccino"

"Nil per mouth. Theater in the morning"

"Oh I haven't been to the theater in AGES! Think the last show I saw was The Lion King. You ever see it? No? T'was amaze-balls! Gosh, the giraffe alone! Kablooyee! went my brain. Hey, why is it so dark in here?"

I notice sleeping figures in the beds around me, snoring peacefully.

"HAAAAY EVERYBODY!"

"SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"Oh. Well whups! Guess I'll just...read? Yassss, queen"

Throughout the night I read and scroll and send WhatsApp messages to everyone in my phonebook and occasionally doze off but the Blue Whale pain meds give me the sensation of tripping over a dead badger, causing me to jerk back to consciousness, if you could call it that.

At some point during the night there is a slight popping sensation and something akin to a fetal kick in my abdomen.

I make exactly three visits to the bathroom, peeing into a white cup with mesh at the bottom that irksomely makes me urinate on my hand without fail.

And on the third visit, I hear a plink sound and look down to find a tiny pebble with jagged borders in my cup.

My cup runneth over! The joy the sight of this little pebble brings me could be likened to a tiny birth. I stare at it and talk to it and take ten million photographs, later to be edited with the utmost care and artistic sensitivity.

I delay notifying staff because of fear that they would stop my rhinoceros tranquilizer and remove my lovely drip but eventually hunger and thirst drive me to fanny down to the nurse's station to demand some coffee. It seems rude to do the emergency call button just for coffee. I mean it's not a hotel, for goodness sake!

In the morning light, the urologist visits me and is awful chipper at the early hour.

"Well you just don't take any nonsense, do you? Sommer passed quite a hefty stone right out! May I have it please?"

"But of course! She's a beauty"

"I mean to send away to the lab for analysis "

"Oh, right. I was...kidding"

"And that's you! A nurse will come to remove the drip (😞) and discharge you (😐)".

Arriving home to find disheveled, unfed kids and a tired and irritable husband harshed my high a bit.

"When are you weaning Danté so she can grow up already?"

"You were weaned after three months and you still haven't grown up"

"What's that you're mumbling?"

"Nothing "

Wait. What just happened?

 "I suspect your husband has Asperger's Syndrome" the pediatric neurologist tells me.

"Uh. Are you serious?" I stutter

"Well, it's not an official diagnosis but I am fairly certain"

"But...why?"

"You should read up about it. They often have long hair"

(So do all my exes)

"They also often have facial piercings or earrings "

(Oh shit)

"And they almost always go into engineering or software"

(Oh dear...I might be an Aspyophile. Is that a thing?)

"They don't make eye contact and tend to not speak but when they do they talk in a monotone voice"

I start to relax. The Dr doesn't know Tommie like I do. 

The fact that the consultation cost almost R3000 is enough to make anyone not want to speak to you, okay, guy.

Three hours earlier; break of dawn.

I stumble out of bed with a toddler in my arms to go fumble some coffee into a cup that I then struggle to drink on the patio as the sun rises and the baby cries because I dared do something I wanted to do for five minutes.

As I blearily look at my child in the early morning light, I go cold as I behold her left eye is swollen almost completely shut.

It's fine, I say to myself. 

Just an eye infection.

I will get some antibiotic eye ointment.

I hope the neurologist doesn't think she always looks like this...

Something very Quasimodo going on there...

Anyway, I start getting ready for the day and drop off the kids around 08:00 just to fetch Danté again at 09:00.

"Why don't we just keep her here until 09:00?" asks Tommie, Mr I-get-to-poop-alone.

"Because I would like to look nice for the pediatric neurologist. He might be tall."

This seems to satisfy Tommie and off we go.

Going to the Zuid Afrikaanse Hospital has its own kind of je ne sais qoui.

There are two street entrances, both narrow and sudden in their appearance. It's an exciting guessing game in figuring out which one to use, depending on the specialist you are visiting.

This experience becomes utterly exhilarating when combined with "helpful" snarks, coming from your spouse in the passenger seat and loud wailing coming from your toddler in the back seat.

You could further enhance the whole theme by having, say, hearing aids whipped at your head.

I manage to navigate the first entrance (wrong one btw) without flattening a lamp pole or pedestrian or feeding my husband a knuckle sandwich.

The guy at the ticket station (yes, a real, live person, sitting in a box, like at tollgates) doesn't look at me as I wave my hand at the button. 

It's just far enough for me to start worrying about being that person who has to open their car door to get to the damn ticket machine. 

Crick, whispers my neck. Something snaps gently in my armpit and finally the ticket appears with a soft whirr.

Okay. Step one complete. We are entering the premises.

Step two: find the right consulting room.

Check. (Only a few minutes of dazed wandering around the hospital, looking for clues.)

When we finally find ourselves in the waiting room there are thankfully no other patients waiting, which gives me the opportunity to breastfeed my little tick, narrowly watching the receptionist for judgement.

She doesn't seem to mind.

The Dr comes out of his office and looks uncomfortable.

I hastily pack away the boobs and shuffle inside.

It's not even that they are gorgeous and making people uncomfortable because of their amazingness. To be honest, the prostheses is still perky as hell but the natural breasts hang off them like boxers that just lost a fight and are clinging onto consciousness by a thread.

Just let us die, they seem to croak at me from inside my feeding bra (who echoes their sentiment).

The Dr asks many many, oh so many questions that I already answered on the very very, oh so very annoying form his receptionist had sent me the week before.

I don't mind the questions on forms but the templates drive me to distraction.

Ever heard of drop downs, apps and the 21st century, people?

Once I have to open something in DocHub, just fucking shoot me.

Finally he goes to check her scans in another room and just before exiting, he turns around and says jokingly:

"Your husband, by the way, is such a warm and communicative person...I will give you his diagnosis as well"

I had all but forgotten Tommie was even in the room. He was sitting in the corner chair with his head down, looking at his phone, grunting responses every 20 minutes or so.

Probably randomly.

I believe Tommie's unique brain has a knack for selective hearing.

Something like; "Blah blah blah blah blah droëwors (recognition and animation) blah blah (goes back to sleep).

Mentioning cryptocurrency, I find, is the most effective way of communicating with him.

I start all my WhatsApps with: "Important Crypto Question incoming" rapidly followed by the mundane: "Do you need something from Spar?" Before his lucid REM cycle kicks back into gear.

"Blah blah blather bloop" says the neurologist.

"Blubber blap R3000 can be paid at reception blurgle"

Tommie is not pleased and neither is Danté who is raving with boredom and indignation at having her a-hole unexpectedly checked by a neurologist. She, and us, were not prepared for a-hole examinations (this includes the consultation fee).

We were also not prepared for a twofer diagnoses.

Luckily Tommie was outside the office when the Dr dropped his bombshell on me.

He concludes the consultation saying

"This is my cellphone number, please WhatsApp me if you have any questions about Asperger's"

I gawk at him and turn to leave.

As an afterthought he mentions:

"Her eye is worrying me a little, I will give you a script for ointment but please just follow me quickly"

He pops next door into a pediatrician consulting room, storms passed the receptionist, barges into the Dr's office (where she is busy with a patient) and all but drags her by the ear into the hallway to "just have a quick look at this eye".

"I am going to admit you right away" she says. Apparently eye infection can easily slip into the brain and fuck up your kid, six-love.

The world ends a little bit for me. Tommie's face reflects my devastation. 

I don't know why, exactly. He's not the one getting incarcerated with a three-second-attention-span illiterate who frequently unleashes her pent-up fury onto your breasts, cell-mate . I think maybe he heard Blah blah blah, your work weekend away just evaporated into mist and was replaced with invaluable one-on-one time with your four year old daughter who seems to aspire to being The Bane of your Existence when she grows up.

On the way to the unavoidable Covid testing tent I desperately fight the urge to round on Tommie and hiss " Can you PLEASE act LESS fucking autistic in front of neurologists! Make eye contact, for fuck's sake, say something and FOR ALL THAT IS GOOD AND DEAR IN THE WORLD, FLUCTUATE YOUR TONE OF VOICE WHEN YOU DO!"

I narrowly escape this fraught situation by thankfully having a nasal swab jabbed deep into my brain.

I fill in some more forms with streaming eyes and a 9kg baby dangling like a cliff hanger from my poor, resigned breast.

When we finally get to emergency care to start the admition process, I bid Tommie a tearful goodbye (he looks suspiciously relieved) and stand in the hallway, listening to nurses poking my baby full of holes, trying to find a vein to put the drip (and big-time antibiotics) in.

Once they are done and I get to swoop in and rescue her, I warn them that their little pussy bandage is going to tear like tissue paper in the wake of my wrathful child but they titter nervously and leave.

Danté cries herself to sleep during which time we are wheeled to the x-ray department to have her abdominal organs and heart sonars done.

Mr two-for-one pediatric neurologist had told us it's to check for tuberosclerosis which he also forbade us, on the pain of death, to Google.

"You will have a heart attack if you do" he tantalizes us.

At x-rays they inform me that the guy who does the abdominal sonar is there but the heart sonar guy is not, so will I mind being wheeled back first thing tomorrow?

I want to sarcastically pull out my diary to check what I had planned for the next day.

Have a life. Be free. Frolick in the wilderness. Eat own food. But first cook own food when get hungry so can eat own food. But also before that go to grocery store to buy food ingredients with which to cook and then the eating. Also, have any money so can buy stuff to make other stuff to stuff into face. 

Suddenly hospital doesn't seem all that bad.

After being wheeled back to emergency, Danté wakes up and promptly rips out her drip in a fountain of blood.

Their little bandage had given way at the first sign of conflict. Pussy-ass little punk bandage.

The nurses seem surprised, even though I warned them repeatedly.

We get admitted into the children's ward and the pediatrician announces that Danté had probably had enough antibiotics in the hour the drip was still in and will only get hooked up again the next day. Seems weird to me that it was such a mad rush to get it inserted and us admitted and then suddenly just grow flacid and useless.

Like... can't we go home and just come in for the antibiotics every day, then?

I want to scream;

"If it's money you want, I know people!" (I really don't, everyone I know is broke as fuck).

"I can get you money, or, or jewelry!" (Again, no chance. Zero. Unless you like shards of broken glass because if you hold it just right it reflects light quite prettily or if it cuts you and you bleed profusely all over it, it can almost resemble a ruby, especially if you are crying and/or drunk whilst looking at it).

I am met with firm resistance.

We get a lovely private room with one giant cot in the middle.

"Urm, excuse me miss Sister Nurse, Healer of children and Warden of the North. Might I bother you for a bed, or a mattress even, so I can bed-share with my tot?"

"No"

"Maybe a blanket? On the floor?"

"No can doozeville, baby doll"

Lovely.

I sleep in the cot, next to Danté.

The next morning I hobble into the matron's office, my neck still bent at a 90% angle and mewl at her "Please...I beg of you. A bed. My kingdom for a bed!" 

(My kingdom's coffers are empty but I can offer you four cats, one of which pees everywhere because she is anxious all the time, Lord knows about what, and a "pre-loved" (eye-roll) Rav4 that is bankrupting me.)

"If we do it for you, we must do it for everyone, and we can't"

I stare pointedly at the empty ward.

"You are putting me in a very difficult position" she says.

Yeah? Try sleeping in a cot.

"How might one go for a smoke up in this bitch?" I ask one of the friendlier looking nurses.

"Well, how do you do it at home?"

"I give her to her dad"

"Well there ain't no dad here"

Bitch.

"What do you do when he's not around?"

"I take her with me and give her an occasional pull"

"She can't go with you to the smoking area"

Big surprise...I almost DIED with surprise.

I end up locking her in her cot and going for a very unsatisfying, guilt ridden cigarette.

When I get back, they had expertly found a vein in her foot and inserted the new drip without her even crying. It is also secured with something resembling duct tape. Good job, pediatric ward.

"Why do emergency staff do anything? Can't they just fill in forms and send us to you guys to do stuff?"

"No"

Another shocker.

Food was nice, though.

By the third day I had gotten my cot-sleeping skills honed. Not so bad if you're dead tired from wandering the halls, trying to navigate security doors with a toddler on the hip and a drip pole-roller-thingy in your hand.

The hospital is old and has the markings of Dutch architecture. The halls smack of history and as the baby and I walk along, I dream up stories about how it came to be and how it might have been a hundred years ago when it was first built.

Incidentally, changing pull ups when your toddler has a drip attached to her foot is hard.

"You have to wiggle the whole thing from the end of the drip right through to her bum. Pull ups are a BIG problem" says the nurse who I've noticed thinks everything is a big problem.

"Well, when I was packing this diaper bag I had no idea my kid would have a drip in her foot later on. Can't we just disconnect it quickly?"

"No, it's an infection risk. And that's a BIG problem"

Eventually Danté's swollen eye calmed down and we were released back into society, cringing and blinking owlishly at the light as we exited the building.

Gosh, I keep taking my health and the health of my kids for granted.

Just kdding, they (and I) are sick all the damn time and I pray the nights away.

"A creche is like a snake. If you keep toying with it, eventually it will bite you" sez the pediatrician.

Okay, lady. We'll talk again when you have your own little ray of sunshine that makes you dream of lovely, snake-creches that look after and entertain them for four to eight blissful hours of the day during which you can have a life and frolick in the wilderness.

Just kidding, I love them so much, I cry every day I drop them off at school.

JUST KIDDING, HAHA, I CRY WITH RELIEF!

Triple just kidding. I love them so much it breaks my heart but I allow myself to get tired and frustrated and overwhelmed.

Mothering is haaaaaard, man.

But please do it. 

Have kids. 

Misery (and unimaginable fulfillment and joy) loves company in the pediatric ward.

A Daughter Named Dante

"I'm afraid I don't have good news for you today. Out of the brainstem auditory response, bone conduction and neurological tests performed today, there has been no response from either ear".

Me, Tommie and Dante all stare at the audiologist in slack-jawed amazement.

"What?"

"We are going to refer you to the cochlear implant team at the University of Pretoria to start the process"

"Are you saying she is completely deaf?"

"We don't use that word anymore but rather profound hearing loss"

"Okay...so...but she's deaf?"

"We are going to do follow up tests in two weeks"

"But...why?"

Mumbling something about the machines.

Me; gathering denial and hope; maybe the machines are broken?

But to be honest; it has been kind of painfully obvious that Dante couldn't hear all too well.

"You don't think she's just stubborn?" asks the babysitter when I mentioned our suspicions long before all the tests and whatnot.

"Well, sure, she's stubborn as fuck but also she seems a little bit deaf"

Babysitter doesn't look concerned.

Good. I don't need more concerned people.

My mom: "We are extremely concerned about... (enter my brain; thinking up all the things that could follow this statement, e.g. "your smoking, your marriage, your behaviour, your mental illness, your health, OUR health, someone else's health, the pandemic, the possibility of an asteroid colliding with earth within the next 24 hours and all our assets are tied up so we can't go to Gold Reef City for old time's sake"...Dante's hearing"

Me: "I know. Me too" (secretly going into a blind panic behind my calm exterior because gosh if my parents are so worried maybe I should be totally hysterical(er)?

Jump back to present.

Audiologist: "Are you okay?"

Me: "Sure, I'm fine, I knew all along, heh heh, kay byyyeeee!"

Twenty minutes later; crying hysterically and sucking on a fistful of cigarettes between sobs.

Why did this happen?

Is it because I complain almost incessantly about how hard it is to Mother?

Is it because I used my own weight in mood-altering substances in my not-so-recent wild youth?

Is it because I harbour a deep-seated distrust and resentment towards car-guards?

"I have always had a creeping suspicion that my daughter can't do math's because I never carried her in a kangaroo pouch as a baby", my cousin tells me.

(Please remind me to tell my mom that this is the reason I myself can't do math's and that she should give me some money to make up for it).

I find my mind wandering back to little glimpses in the past.

Dante not being woken at night by violent slashing noises and screaming...I like my horror movies...and also Tommie and me may or may not have some weird sex stuff we're into.

Dante not being woken or in fact perturbed at all by her super drama queen sister, frequently having million decibel, never-ending meltdowns.

Dante not having a fright when Tommie says "BOO!" to her when I finally get her to sleep after a long day. A fact that definitely saved his life on numerous occasions.

I mean honestly, who DOES that?!

Dante not going into screaming hysterics when I electrically inflate the kiddies pool with her sitting in it (think sudden, unexpected whooshing whirr from pump) but rather just sitting there, philosophically watching the tubes rise.

Dante looking only slightly disappointed and confused when a balloon pops right in her face.

Like the sands through the hour glass; these are the nights of my life. Thinking of times my little girl seemed to not hear so good.

Is it because I took Serdep when I was pregnant?

Okay maybe but if I didn't, none of our little family unit of four might be alive today. 

I will set the scene with a limerick; 

There once was a virus called Covid

And everyone got locked down, t'was so shit

A third trimester mother

Almost her two year old did smother

But Serdep had everything covered.

Second question; is it because I selfishly wanted to experience an unmedicated home birth in a tub?

Okay, so yes, she came three weeks early (just like her sister who hears me opening a chocolate on the other side of the house, behind a closed door, with the tv and fan on, in the middle of the night.

And also, yes, she needed oxygen which the midwife gave her. Also I took her to the pediatrician the next day and he was in-love with her. 

I like him. He has long hair.

We never did a newborn hearing test and I can't for the life of me remember why because I remember thinking about it a lot.

"These things sometimes slip through the cracks" the audiologist tells me.

"Also; babies need to be about 10kg before certain tests and scans can be done"

Dita is four and just reached 11kg, my mother in law is minute in size.

This is all her fault...

Is totally irrational blame-shifting a stage of grief? Ah I'll just lump it in there with angerdenialbargaining.

Is it because I sent her to creche at just two days shy of three months old and maybe she caught an obscure virus that causes deafness in babies?

And if so, why the hell did no one warn me?

And also, why isn't all the other little snotnoses deaf?

Ag, either way.

Even though the tests have been kind of interesting and I'm having fun learning South African Sign Language, my heart pendulums between bleeding and breaking and then just kind of vibrating with shock and dismay.

People from all over the place have offered their support and I must admit, the attention has been nice. I haven't gotten much attention recently, being all goodie two shoes; dead-boring, clean and sober and going to bed at the-baby's-asleep-o-clock (between 19:00 (praise be) and 20:00 (will I never sleep again? Maybe I should just drug her).

Come to think about it, might she be deaf because I have drugged her just a tiny bit on only a few occasions? You know...for sanity's sake? Or lack thereof?

Nah. Can't be that. Then the whole world would be deaf, Shirley.

I would gladly give up getting any attention at all ever again if it meant her hearing would return or exist even, if she was born deaf.

Is it because she had numerous ear infections and I only took her to an ent at 18 months to get grommets inserted?

"If there is fluid in the middle ear, everything sounds like you're under water. People say their child differs like night and day after grommet insertion." the doctor at the emergency room tells me when I take Dante for the millionth time because she is in so much pain from her ears and antibiotics and Aspelone just doesn't seem to be cutting it anymore and I'm freaking the fuck out.

"Cool! She is kind of moody which can be annoying," I sez to the Doctor "how soon can we do it?"

Literally three days later she had her grommets. It was a harrowing experience. I couldn't give her boob-juice since four in the morning. The operation was only at 09:15 after the youngest baby was taken into surgery first and then the sneaky AF other OLDER baby and his sneaky AF mommy pushed in line and went before us too.

I wanted to object but have an innate fear of nurses...

Dante was furious. 

They couldn't keep her hospital bracelet thingy on anywhere, without her ripping it off within seconds and trying to push it into someone's anus (mostly mine).

"It's okay, we'll just remember who she is and what needs to be done" the nurse chirps at me, having a wonderful day, not having her nipples pulled right through her collar by ravenous, rageful little baby hands. 

I suppose if they mistakenly removed her adenoids, tonsils and inserted grommets it could save me a trip or two in the future, plus then I could sue them for the money I need for cochlear implants.

They sound expensive.

Heh he, sound. See what I did there?

After the grommets and three days of green ooze coming out of her ears we eagerly started watching her for signs of improved hearing.

Over the next month I felt like I was watching a candle flickering in an occasional gust.

At times we were sure she could hear. At other times it seemed like she was unable to hear even the loudest sound.

I pestered the ENT day and night, sending suggestions, questions and even studies, explaining to him exactly what the problem is and how to fix it, using this new experimental treatment some guy invented in Centurion (ENT's hate this man for inventing cheap, 100% successful ear healing tool! the click bait headline might say).

Eventually I went to a different ENT and then pestered him night and day.

Finally both of them, almost simultaneously, referred me to audiologists for extensive tests.

"I mean, should we really even do it? What could it possibly accomplish? We should totally rather do that three minute brand new operation that fixes everything, that I read about on the internet?" I say to Tommie.

"Well maybe we should just do the tests so we can stop constantly asking each other whether we think she heard this or that or that other thing or this here gun shot right next to her ear?"

So we did.

And right in front of my eyes, that little flame flickered and died.

My baby is deaf.

But at least those pesky A Quiet Place aliens won't get her. 

With my laugh (which will one day return to me), I'll be one of the first to go belly up into their hideous alien tummies.