Thoughts on transformation

Zyle has been noticably quick to anger this week and last week. He quickly jumps to screaming when he doesn't get his way. This can happen frequently, especially since our child-parent communication skills are not the best. He tends not to use sign, just grunts and nods.

Zyle is going in for neurosurgery tomorrow. Yes, it is routine. Yes, they know this procedure cold. But they are reshaping his head. Moving his skull bones around. Reshaping his brain. How can Zyle NOT be fundamentally changed by this?

We are doing this because we want room in his skull for his brain to expand, to grow. But when Zyle comes out, he will have a new head shape. Forgetting about the scar, his face, his look will be different. The way hair rests on his head, the way his ears stick out, the way he smiles will all be different.

And what about his personality? My concerns are not with something devastating happening. My concern is more about subtle changes. What if this surgery alters his personality in some ineffable way and he becomes a different person?

He is always changing, growing (aren't we all?), and his personality is still developing. I'll never know if he is the person he is due to the surgery, or who he was going to be anyway.

Sure, there will be some months of regression, in response to the trauma of the surgery. How will we know the regression is over? How will we know we are just in the throes of the 'terrible twos'? How will we know that the latest round of fussiness or screaming or whatever is not the result of surgery?

For now and forever more, we will never know. So it turns out we've traded one set of constant uncertainties for another. Lovely.

I know this is the right thing to do. But I can't help feeling that when Zyle leaves us for the OR tomorrow, we will be saying goodbye to the Zyle we have grown to know and love, and will be waiting anxiously for hours to meet and greet a wholely different Zyle.

*sniff, tears*

More tomorrow (now, today).