Read slowly. This is going to be a slow post, typing mostly one-handed.

My left hand does not feel like my hand at all. It is not much more functional than a claw.

This has been a very emotional few days.

When we spoke to the neurologist on Friday and learnt it was not a stroke, he definitely downplayed the magnitude of this thing. I was anticipating quite a simple procedure, a couple of nights in hospital, rooming in with Stephen, and coming home in no time. Not that he said any of that; it was just an impression and probably a lot of wishful thinking.

The surgeon yesterday morning painted a very different picture.

Best case scenario - 6 hour operation, day in icu, 3 or 4 days in neurological ward, home in minimum 7-10 days. However. No option to have Stephen for feeding and he didn't 'get' how strongly I feel about breastfeeding. He didn't seem to place that much importance on it at all and pretty much recommended we get him weaned quickly.

It just is not an option for me.

I can, with a struggle, accept the fact that he is going to have formula for several days however I am not prepared for that to be the end of it. I need to pump until I can nurse him again, even if it is not practical to get the milk to him (pumping enough, keeping the milk cool and ensuring everything is sterile will be difficult or impossible). And if there are complications in the surgery they may not wake me for 24 hours. I don't know how I will be able to ensure the pumping happens in that case. I would also want to nurse Stephen myself as soon as possible before too many days go by as pumps don't work as well as babies for maintaining the milk supply and if Stephen is formula fed for too long there is a risk of him not returning easily to the breast.

We tried, for the first time on Sunday, to give him a bottle of expressed milk. It predictably did not go very well, though he did drink some.

All my wishes may be possible to attain with a lot of noise on my side (Peter's side, if I am unconscious) but it would be nice if the surgeon saw it as more of a priority and I felt that he was more on my side about it.

The surgeon was also determined to be very upfront about possible risks and complications but we did not come out of there feeling good. e.g. possibly months to recover, it may not in fact be the simple cyst it looks like from the scan, it may not be the cause of the problem at all, possibility of a post-op drain in the head, universal odds of not making it through the operation of 5-10% (we just have to ignore that one; surely odds must be much better with state-of-the-art facilities?)

I shed a lot of tears for my family last night.

This morning I woke up, for the first time since this all started, no worse than the previous day, which was encouraging. We also saw anothe surgeon for a second opinion. No real difference in the recommendation except a little less doom and gloom and a better feeling about the guy. And he had a more supportive stance on the breastfeeding. Unfortunately we can't switch to this guy for the surgery as our crappy medical aid plan only pays in full for a certain group of hospitals. With the other group you have a 30% co-payment. Interesting term, that. I guess somehow the tone of the more accurate description (screw-you payment) rings a little less well.

The view of both is that, while it can't be left untreated, a few more days won't hurt, so I will probably have it done a week from today. The surgeon operates Tuesdays and Thursdays. We were thinking yesterday of making it this Thursday but leaving it until Tuesday will give us a few more days to try and get Stephen to take a bottle. Also there are a whole bunch of end-of-term events that the kids and I would be very sad for me to miss.