My girl's getting scalped

Admittedly, her father doesn't find that joke funny at all. Not that I blame him. It's about Sarah Silverman level of poor taste.

But I can't help but make that joke in light of the news that my daughter's going in for surgery in a couple of weeks. When she was born, the girl had a rather oddly shaped head. Because she was breech, the girl's head was against my diaphragm, which resulted in a head shape that looked like one of the aliens from the movie Alien.


While the shape of her head has improved to looking close to normal, our pediatrician was worried about it and had X-rays done. Turns out that one of the sutures along her skull (the one going from front to back) has prematurely fused. Known as sagittal synostosis, this is the most common premature fusion of the skull sutures. Hence the surgery to correct that condition.

The most amusing thing from the appointment with the neurosurgeon was seeing how my girl reacted when the resident came in to talk with us. She had just finished crying, fussing and soothing herself with a snack from my boob when he came in. Instantly she turned on the charm.

"Why hello doctor," she seemed to flirt with a smile and a coo. "How are you today? Oh this condition, it's nothing really. I'm sure you're more than capable of handling it."

I swear, if she's like that as she gets older, her dad will be on the front lawn with a shotgun.

Anyways, the Benevolent Dictator will be in the hospital for a few days afterwards to recover from the surgery. Jeff and I will be by her side (or trading off since for some reason only one parent is allowed with her overnight).

Am I worried? Am I freaking out? Not really. I'm not thrilled admittedly (and if given the choice, I'd rather get a kick in the groin that have BD have this), but I don't see any alternative. If we don't do it, she could get chronic headaches as she gets older as well as put undue pressure on her brain. Knowing friends with chronic headaches, I know how bad it can get. I'm just figuring that this is kind of inevitable and that I should flow with it instead of wondering how we got this luck of the draw.

I also know that the neurosurgeon doing this is one of the experts in the field and has done hundreds of these operations.

Honestly though, I don't know how I'll react emotionally until I get there. I didn't think that I'd freak out when BD had the X-rays, but I did. I was pacing around nervously as Jeff helped hold her still for the shots. I have a feeling I won't be able to handle watching her go under with the anestheia, so I don't want to see that.

But I don't want to linger on that or what could go wrong. We've got a couple of weeks before everything happens. Odds are she'll be fine. I knew that when I had a child, I'd be giving up a lot of control to the world and to this tiny person. I knew chaos would ensue in my life and I embraced the idea. Now I just need to learn how to live with it.