The specialist talked us through the next step. Probing. A thin, metal wire inserted into the pinpoint opening of her tear duct, guided down into her nasal cavity to pop the membrane that hadn’t dissolved at birth. “Simple procedure,” he said. “In and out.”
The balloon procedure was scheduled for a Tuesday. On the Sunday before, something shifted. how do you unblock a tear duct
I held her in the recovery room as she thrashed and screamed—and this time, finally, tears gushed from both eyes. A flood of saline and fury. I sobbed with her, equal parts relief and revulsion. I did this to you, I thought. I paid a man to push a wire into your face. The specialist talked us through the next step
He didn’t describe the sound. The tiny, wet pop of an infant’s anatomy yielding to steel. “Simple procedure,” he said
And I realized: she had learned to feel pain without weeping from the broken side. She had simply rerouted. Her body had built a workaround while I was busy trying to demolish the dam.
He didn’t say what happens to the other ten percent.
The specialist’s voice on the phone was grave. “We need to schedule the balloon dilation. Under general anesthesia.”