Friday, June 20, 2014

Man vs. Women, Brave vs. Toughness!

Women just put men to shame, I say this because this week I saw something that just convinced me of it and I do not think my mind could ever be changed to thinking differently.

Almost a decade and a half ago I watched my wife experience child birth and after seeing her body change and then have to experience a cesarean (c-section) birth with my daughter I figured we may be one and done. But a few years later she was ready to do it again and could not wait to “experience” it all over. She was told from the beginning that if you have a c-section the first time you most likely will have to have it again with the next and that didn’t even make her flinch.

Could you imagine a man going through child birth? I personally could not do it. I would wager to guess that if it were up to men to populate this world there would be a lot fewer of us running around.

As an athlete growing up I was a pretty competitive athlete and I never seemed to walk away from a challenge. I thought the harder something was the more I would enjoy succeeding at it. My first love was baseball and I was a catcher. The equipment used by a catcher is referred to as the tools of ignorance because you are either as tough as nails or ignorant to want to squat down in front of a guy that is going to throw a hard baseball at you at speeds of 80-100 mile per hour and oh by the way sometimes is curves, slides or knuckles in mid air as its coming at you. Years later I am finding out that I must have been ignorant because compared to what I have experienced lately I was not tough at all.

This past week if you read my last Blog post you know my daughter had corrective surgery for scoliosis. Maggie had a severe curvature of her spine and the doctor recommended she have this procedure. We first noticed the issue when she was about seven or eight years old and my wife made a visit to a specialist north of our home here in Florida.  We went through the process of a back brace for Maggie while she slept for a few years but the issue continued.

We were told that the age of fourteen was the best time to do this so the plan was the summer of her fourteenth birthday she would have this operation done. As the time approached and we made more and more visits to the doctor the reality and the intensity of that reality increased. I could feel myself growing uneasy with concern for my daughter and what she was about to experience.

As we sat in the office with the doctor and he explained how the procedure would be done and then went into the percentages of what could happen I began to worry in particular about the 2% chance of never walking again? When you hear that, you forget about the 98% chance of everything being fine and cannot help but to focus on that 2% and worry. But Maggie never wavered.

During that last week before the operation it really began to hit her and at about this time my wife being the wonderful protective mom she is offered to cancel the operation if she did not want to follow through with it. Maggie once again with all the maturity and conviction of someone, anyone that has ever set a goal said “I am doing this” and that was it.

The day came and at 4:00am we woke and headed to the hospital. After some time registering in and prepping with the nurses it was time to head to the waiting room for the next seven and a half hours. After about six of those hours the doctor came out and told us everything went wonderfully.

That, I was told was the hard part. For me the hard part had just kicked in. No parent wants to see their kid in pain but this was different. When we got to the room, finally, Maggie was a trouper. She was visibly uncomfortable but with all the pain medication she was flying high. Keeping her sense of humor about her with all the sarcasm a fourteen year old could muster she provided us with continuous comedy as she barked out her needs and demands.  Within 24 hours of her operation she stood from her bed as if unimpressed with herself. Within 48 hours she was sitting up in a lounge chair and in less than three days of having her back opened and two rods and nineteen screws placed into her spine she was walking around the hospital floor with ease.

So you want to talk about who is braver, a little girl or a full grown man? Who can handle pain, a female or a male?

I give!

I cannot compete in my own household on either level with the women I live with.

I seem to gain more and more respect for the other sex with every year I grow older. After years of being educated by my wife I am learning from my daughter how to carry oneself with confidence and pride as well the belief that things will work out.  To say that Maggie impressed me this week would be an understatement. She almost seemed to know what she had to do and focused on completing the task at hand even as those around her did not understand what was going on. The nurses told her what was going on with her body and she pushed through any pain and the frustration of the drugs in her system to reach her personal goal.

I was a bouncer for a number of years in a night club in New Jersey and I would like to offer this little bit of advice, the next time someone challenges you and your Machismo just tell them to deal with your woman because they seem to handle everything better than we do.

 I wrote this more as a journal entry for myself to keep as a remembrance of this week because this was the hardest thing I have ever had to do as a father or as a man.  I thank God everything worked out for the best and I am thankful to the doctors and nurses at the hospital for the wonderful treatment Maggie and all of our family has received this past week.  


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