My son had several surgeries at different points in his treatment. Each time we had a long discussion with his surgeon to review the procedure and to talk about the possible complications. It made me feel scared when I thought about my little boy lying on an operating table being cut with a knife. Still, I’m glad that the surgeon was so thorough in explaining everything to us. I think that if I didn’t know what was going to happen, my imagination would have really given me a hard time.

Our son was admitted for surgery to have his tumor resected early on a Monday morning. The surgery took 5 hours. We stuck close by in a waiting room, although the hospital provided beepers to call us if we wanted to leave the area. It was an unbearable wait, but we were given updates every hour or so.

When my child had surgery, the doctor said that there was a possibility that he would need to stay on the ventilator for a few days. Thankfully, that never happened, and he came from the recovery room breathing completely on his own.

An epidural [a catheter inserted into the space just outside the spinal cord to deliver pain control medications] was in place for 3 days for pain control after Hunter had surgery. It helped to make him very comfortable. He also had a catheter to take out the urine. This was quite uncomfortable for him, but he only needed it for a day or so.

Zachary had two surgeries to resect an abdominal tumor. He recovered from the first fairly quickly, but the second wasn’t so easy. It was a horrible 3-week-long recovery period involving painful bladder spasms, extreme diarrhea, infections, and weight loss. But the good news was that his tumor was completely removed the second time around without losing any of his organs.

Logan, who had hepatoblastoma at age 1, has many scars. He has a two-inch scar from his port. He has a big scar from his G-tube. It’s deep and quite large and it looks just like another belly button. He has two drainage tube scars. Logan always says that he had boo-boos in his stomach and the doctors had to cut them out. His doctors always called his scar the Mercedes cut: an upside-down V with a two-inch cut in the center going up the breast bone. Every time we were near a wishing well, we would rub money on Logan’s belly and wish that his tumor would never come back. So now every time Logan has a coin, he pulls up his shirt and rubs the money all over his scar. I tell him they’re just his battle scars, and he has a special tummy (since he does have two belly buttons). But I hope they’ll fade out some.

The psychologist on our team suggested that we think up age-appropriate, honest descriptions about what was going to happen. The idea was to give our 5-year-old son some vocabulary so he could think about his situation and maybe process things without being afraid of the unknown. The day before his surgery, we told him that he needed an operation. We explained, “An operation is where they open the skin to fix something. This time, they will be taking the tumor out. A special doctor will give you medicine that puts you to sleep, but it’s really more than sleep; while the medicine is working, you can’t feel anything. After the surgery, you’ll feel very sleepy. If you have a headache, a nurse will give you medicine to make it go away.” We reassured him that we would stay in the hospital with him, and we were clear about the whereabouts of each family member. “Mommy will be here when you wake up, but Daddy will sleep on the couch in the room with you.”