In January, I wrote about how Henry had four cavities. FOUR! CAVITIES! Oh god. And how he was going to have them filled, in June, the day before his birthday.

Friday is his birthday. Thursday is his surgery. Tomorrow is the ‘pre-operative visit’ with the dentist.

There is not enough wine in the world to take the edge off this.

The plan for the next few days is this: Henry and I will go see the dentist at 8:00 tomorrow morning. My parents (god love them) are flying in tomorrow afternoon (ostensibly because it’s H’s birthday and of course we need some help with Charlie on Thursday, but let’s face it, my mother is as freaked out about this as I am. I can tell from her voice on the phone every time we talk, which has been EVERY DAY for nearly the last week. For no reason. Except that we are both overwhelmingly worried about this whole thing). On Thursday morning, H and Wade and I have to be at the hospital at 6:30 am. We opted for the early EARLY check-in time because Henry is not allowed to eat or drink ANYTHING (not even water! or they will cancel the proceedure! or so they keep telling me! very firmly!) after midnight. His ‘proceedure’ will start at 8:45 and will last about an hour–BUT, because they have to put him under, we are planning on two or three hours in recovery after that.

And thus the locus of my worry. I’m fine with the teeth (well, not FINE fine, but he actually only has two full-blown cavities, and two coming on, so really it’s not all that bad–the dentist will remove the dead stuff and ‘cap’ the teeth with silver caps–very chic–and he will be good to go) but the anesthesia–that’s a different story. And right now I don’t even know what the hospital proceedure is–can I stay with him until he’s asleep? Will they give him something orally to knock him out before they start an IV? Will they give me anything to take the edge off? (Okay, I suspect not, but I can hope, yes?)

Then there are my really big fears, about all the things that MIGHT happen while he’s under, things I am so afraid of that I can hardly even think about, and certainly can’t write about. I had a horrible dream on Sunday night that I went to get a haircut and spent hours chatting with the stylist, and lost track of time and forgot to go pick Henry up at school, and then when I finally realized I was late, I couldn’t find my car, and . . . and just at the absolute worst part of the dream, when I was fighting to wake up, Henry came and got in bed with me, and pushed me off my pillow and said, ‘Let’s get up and make french toast and see what’s on TV’ and I was so very happy he was there.

So I’m trying to think about Friday and his birthday and his Spiderman cake and the cd player Wade is out buying him right now and not about what might happen. But forgive me, Internet, if I don’t write much the next few days–it’s pretty much all I can do just now to keep it together from one moment to the next.