Not allowed to die.

This time, surgery will be at St. Francis Hospital - not at St. John's Hospital.  It's still a hospital, though.  It still feels like a hospital, looks like a hospital...smells like a hospital.  It's a hospital.  And the hospital houses the special people called "doctors", "nurses", "x-ray techs", "surgeons", and "med-techs" who will be saving my son's life.  They will save his life.  They will.

His dad gets to where we are as we are accompanying Mikey down a hall.  He is just about to go to surgery.  He is not scared this time as he was last time.  I guess Mikey has not had too much time to think about it.  He knows he's in trouble.  Or was.  Or is.  Hell, I don't know.  He looks like he is in pain, but, once again, he does not look like he's near death.  What is it with this boy and death?  Or, is it Death?  Is Death trying to take my son??  Why?!? 

Morbid, morbid thoughts.  I have been talking to the doctor.  I think he is going to be the one to be operating on my son's stomach.  It is his stomach and not his chest, I guess.  So, the surgeon (surgeons are doctors, right?) is telling me that the hose up his nose is to drain his stomach since the bullet went through it. 

Oh, I see.

The bullet (bullet...the bullet...he's talking about a BULLET and my son in the same sentence...oh...my...) passed through the upper part of Mikey's stomach and then fragmented throughout his body.

Fragmented.  What...it exploded?  What made it do that?  Did his stomach shatter it?  How?  Why didn't I pay more attention in physics class?  How does a bullet pass through soft tissue and fragment? *sigh*  I'm not doing very well in my head.  I must look fine, though ("fine" is a relative word) because the doctor keeps telling me about what he's going to do inside of my son's body.  Just like he's talking about a machine.  I guess our bodies are like machines...that's what I've heard, anyway.

So, he's going to cut him from sternum to above his pubic bone (stem to stern?), then he's going to repair his stomach; then he's going to "explore" to see what other damage there might be, and remove any bullet pieces in his body.  But he won't be able to get them all.  He wants to patch his stomach and make sure there are no other wounds - no other bleeding areas...no other organs that are damaged and in need of repair.

Very matter-of-fact.  Like he's talking about someone else and not my only son.  My daughters' big brother.  The one I asked for.  "Please, God, let my first child be a boy so my other kids can look up to him."  I did, I asked for a son.  God gave me a son.  Then, he gave me two girls.  It was a selfish request on my part.  I am the oldest girl in my family - on my mom's side.  The oldest girl of nearly all girls.  I hated it, and always wished for a big brother.  I did not want my first child to grow up like me - I wanted a boy first.  And I got him.  And he has nearly died twice within 12 months.  Punishment for something?  I don't know.  But, I'm going there.  I hate it when I go places like that.  It doesn't help a situation to go places like that in my head.  But I have a son and two daughters.  My daughters love their big brother.  He's not allowed to die. 

"After I'm done with my part of the surgery, the bone guy will come in and fix his arm."

So, I guess I missed all the details about what he was going to do in my son's body.  But I learned that there would be another surgeon there.  So, at least two surgeons.  To save my son.  To make him whole again.