After the shock subsides that your child must have major surgery, your ability to shepard them through the pre-op, post-op and recuperation stages can be maximized by careful planning. Here are several things to consider that I learned.
• Home is the best place for children to heal. The sooner they feel a part of the daily home routine, the quicker and better they will heal. The pets, other siblings, parents, familiar rooms, belongings, friends who stop by, all take on therapeutic benefits. Before your child arrives at the hospital, begin to prepare family and house for the new mood in the house upon discharge, and perhaps the arrival of new medical equipment or nurses, or therapists in the home.
• Be sure you have someone in addition to yourself ‘a clone’ who can sit at your child’s hospital bedside 12 hours a day, seven days a week, if need be. If they are not a legal spouse, be sure to give their name to the hospital registrar on the day of surgery, so the doctors can speak with them freely without violating HPPA regulations.
• Pray as much as you need, and also arrange for several sessions with a psychotherapist, rather than the Social Worker provided by the hospital. Stewarding your child through major surgery will stir up unanticipated emotions that will need professional guidance.
• While your child is in post-op, you or your ‘clone’ must be available to the doctors. As each night in the hospital falls, one of you must return home or to the hotel for sleep. You will need it the next day when you relieve your ‘clone’ who will go straight home to get their sleep.
• Maintain a selection of normal activities for your own emotional balance, and remember that what you are going through has prompted some parents to disappear to another town, or into drugs, simply to escape the burden and the emotional pain and feelings of powerlessness.child psychologist near me
• Remember that as the child’s guardian, you are ultimately in charge. If your child ever needed you to be in charge it is then. The doctors role is to diagnose and fix ailments, if possible. When talking with doctors, always ask to speak with the surgeon or the Attending doctor. Also remember that as someone who knew your child before surgery you know when they are behaving normally. This is important information doctors need you for. If during recovery and recuperation your child is not behaving normally, doctors rely on you to tell them.
• Each day, ask questions about everything related to your child. For example: How did the surgery go?; What is the prognosis for recovery? When can they go home?; What milestones must they achieve before going home? What are the various tubes and wires attached to them? Talk to the nurses, aside from nursing and caring for patients, a significant component of a nurse’s job is to teach the caregivers how to care for the patient at home. Remember, you and your ‘clone’ have a legal right to ask questions and make demands. Never be afraid to seem pushy or vulnerable. Doctors and nurse respect and respond to those who are ever-vigilant.
• Ask daily when the doctors plan on discharging your child. Doing so keeps pressure on the medical team, and will alert you to any changes in your child’s status. Doctors and insurance companies know that people, especially children heal better in familiar surroundings, and also that the longer patients stay in hospital, the greater their chances are of getting an infection, that can prolong their hospital stay.
• Consider having your child see a Child Psychologist to process any unresolved feelings they may have about their surgery. If it took place before four years of age they may not remember it, but they will have unresolved feelings about it. If surgery occurred after four years of age, they may need to express their feelings and memories about it as well.