When she was nine, Daughter Number Two developed a slight limp. She was brought to a doctor and then a consultant who revealed that she had one leg longer than the other. The official title for this is limb length discrepancy: and it’s more common than you might think. Most of us have small differences between the lengths of our arms and legs. But in Daughter Number Two’s case, it was going to require surgery: specifically, lengthening the shorter leg.
The procedure is like something from the Middle Ages. A surgeon breaks the leg and then installs a frame around the break. The frame has knobs, which are used to gradually stretch the limb, allowing time for new bone to grow. Yet, as gruesome as this sounds, the entire procedure was a complete success and for the most part, Daughter Number Two coped with it very well.
Except for the day of the surgery. It recently came up again in the course of conversation: and again, I told her why that day sticks in my memory. Because that was a day I failed her.
She was, understandably, a little apprehensive that morning, and the operating theatre didn’t help. She clung on to me when we saw it. A large room with low lighting and all sorts of high-tech equipment arranged around the walls. In the centre, a huge, complicated-looking bed surrounded by lights that loomed ominously over it. It looked like a science-fiction torture chamber.
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Yet I managed to coax her into the room and on to the bed. The trouble started when the anaesthetist arrived. She swept into the room, her voice booming, and the atmosphere instantly changed from one of calm professionalism to something close to frantic.
The anaesthetist didn’t seem to be deliberately shouting. It was just that her normal speaking voice was unnaturally loud and her manner gruff. She glanced at a chart, mispronounced daughter Number Two’s name and then proceeded to yell at her that there was nothing to worry about, that she had done this many times before and always made sure everyone was calm. She whipped out her phone and started to play something – whale sounds or some new-age music, I can’t quite remember – I was more focused now on Daughter Number Two who had shrunk away from this woman, and was now starting to panic: prompting the woman to yell some more. Bizarrely, for someone with so much self-professed experience, she seemed to think that the most effective way to calm someone down was simply to repeat: you calm down!
When Daughter Number Two speaks about it now, it’s presented as a funny story. The loud woman in the hospital. But it wasn’t funny then
But even while the needle went in and Daughter Number Two slipped off, she was begging me: Daddy, make this stop.
But I didn’t. I just kept telling her that everything would be all right. I deferred to the medical professionals. Many times, I’ve gone over what I could have said or should have said. I could have looked around to see if anyone else there with a bit more sense might intervene. I could have told the anaesthetist to shut up: though getting into an argument with her would probably have increased my child’s agitation. Perhaps there was nothing I could have done, but that’s never taken away from a sense that I should have done something.
When Daughter Number Two speaks about it now, it’s presented as a funny story. The loud woman in the hospital. But it wasn’t funny then. For weeks afterwards she had difficulty going to sleep. The feeling of release when she began to nod off would bring back that sense of helplessness she experienced in hospital.
The late great child psychologist David Carey always liked to say that you don’t have to be a good parent; just good enough. I’d add to that you have to accept that at some point, you will fail your children, sometimes spectacularly. You need to forgive yourself, and hope they do too.