I’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge

Sometimes I forget I’m a complete idiot. I just go about my day doing things, blissfully unaware of the fact that I am, apparently, a complete moron. Thank goodness I have teenage daughters to frequently remind me that I know absolutely nothing.

“Hey Mom, can you come up to Charleston and take me to a doctor’s appointment? I have to tell them I have a ride.”

“Of course. Why do you need a ride?”

“Oh, they won’t let me drive after surgery.”

Surgery? What surgery? Did I miss a family meeting where they casually discussed my teenager having surgery?

“Yeah, an endoscopy. I have to be put under so they can see what’s going on with my stomach. I can’t drive home because of the anesthesia.”

Sigh…Since she was a baby, any time stress entered my daughter’s life, it went right to her stomach. It could be good stress, like a birthday party. “I can’t wait to go” quickly became “I can’t go because I might puke.”

Worse was negative stress—like the time her baby tooth came out. Something she had been desperate for, teasing me for months that she’d “lost it” (and proudly handing me a kernel of corn). But then it actually happened, and she spiraled so hard, begging me to “put it back in”. She melted down to the point that she turned a milestone into a full-blown catastrophe, vomited, and ended the night asleep on the bathroom floor.

I have taught her coping mechanisms her entire life. As a card-carrying member of the Panic Attack Society, I am very aware of how something slightly disruptive can send your entire body into a dumpster fire of chaos. She is well-versed in self-regulation - deep breathing, grounding, getting her body back to baseline - without needing to carry barf bags everywhere. But an endoscopy?

Now, as her mother, I feel like this is information that should have maybe… crossed my desk. Floated by me in a casual text. Been whispered into the void in my general direction. Instead, I’m getting the “by the way, I’ll be unconscious” update like it’s a quick Target run.

“Okay,” I say, trying to sound like a calm, informed adult who definitely knows what’s happening in her own family. “When is this?”

“Friday.”

It is, at this moment, Tuesday.

Perfect. Big fan of the three-business-day notification system for medical procedures that require me to shuffle my entire life around and drive four hours for an unnecessary appointment.

“Honey, there’s nothing wrong with your stomach. This is just how you react to stress. It’s anxiety—that’s all.”

“Ok, MOM. Whatever. I have researched this and I know that there is something medically wrong with me. It is NOT anxiety. There is an issue. A MEDICAL ISSUE. YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW MOM, OK?” Her screech teetering on the brink of hysteria.

Silly me, I forgot that I just met her and also that I am a complete idiot.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal that I scheduled this, Mom.”

This is the same child who once declared a full emotional crisis because her sock “felt weird,” but we are now casually scheduling medical procedures like it’s a nail appointment.

I pick her up to go to the hospital and she’s chattering away like this whole thing is just some normal occurrence instead of one involving anesthesia that could kill her.

The nurse tells me that the entire process takes about an hour, which now gives me 59 and a half minutes to panic, overthink, and spiral into the very specific fear that she’s actually sick and I’ve been ignoring her. That I have somehow harmed my child through sheer, unintentional incompetence. That she’s going to die and it’s my fault because I decided it was “just anxiety.”

You know. Light waiting room thoughts.

I’m almost a puddle when the doctor finally comes to get me.

“I’ve looked at everything,” the doctor says. “I don’t see anything concerning.”

Terrific. Love that for us. Deep sigh of relief.

“I’ll run some blood work,” he adds, “but everything looks normal.”

And then she looks at him and says, “Oh… so does that mean my mom was right? Is it just anxiety?”

The doctor nods. “It could be.”

“Kind of like I have been saying for your entire life. Remember how I’ve been saying this? For your whole life?”

“Oh, okay, Mommy. Can I have some snacks? My tummy is hungry.”

concludes today’s episode of Mom Was Right.

Tracy Winslow is the owner of the premier yarn store, Low Country Shrimp and Knits. When she isn’t sherpa-ing her child to unnecessary medical appointments, she’s hunting down the best yarn for life in the Low Country—especially during the season when she briefly considers why it isn’t socially acceptable to leave the house naked… until she passes a full-length mirror and remembers exactly why. Learn to knit, crochet, or needle felt so you have a perfectly valid excuse to stay inside where the air conditioner lives. www.shrimpandknits.com