She says "I can't, I can't," and I keep telling her that she can. And she hates me for it. (I don't really blame her.) I think "I can't, I can't," but I don't get to say it out loud. I get to talk to doctors, talk to the insurance, brightly assure her brother that she's fine, just fine, they're taking good care of her, we have to believe she's getting better; let's go do something fun together while I'm home; let's see if Lemur or Mario can play! I don't get to "I can't" because she needs me and because if I can't, who can? One foot in front of the other. Because I can until she can,...
While we were camping and tormenting small dogs with boogie boards, Chickadee was spending a week with her dad. One of the things I shouldn't say out loud---but will, because I've learned by now that everyone in a similar situation feels it, and guilt about it is just stupid---is that it was a relief to be apart for a few days. Not because we don't love her (we do), not because we weren't worried about her (we were), but because she is, at this point, due to many factors out of her control, completely and totally exhausting. A child with a chronic illness is a challenge to a parent's...
I lamented to Otto this morning that "I don't have anything interesting to write about!" Otto---deeply embroiled in the home stretch of grading and finishing up the semester---gave me several suggestions of guffaw-worthy student gaffes, none of which I'm actually going to share. That's mostly because they're not my stories, but also because I don't want Otto to lose his job. He's so nice to the students' faces; there's no need for them to know he makes fun of them here at home.* Um. Oops? See, the problem is that all I want right now is... nothing. No drama. No excitement. I want boring and...
Hey, let's talk about the kid who still likes me! So I may have mentioned that we suspected Monkey had another sinus infection. It was a kind of deja vu to last year's pre-surgical carnival of Angry Monkey; his behavior has been steadily deteriorating for a month, and all the while he insists he feels FINE he is FINE it's just that everyone else is STUPID and MEAN and why are you LOOKING AT HIM? Things at school have been rough, and I've been back in that place where I say, "He's sick. This isn't him. Please be patient, we're working on it." And whether it's reality or not, it feels like...
The last few days have kind of beaten me down, which you wouldn't think would be possible, given that I keep (stupidly) thinking to myself, "Well, it's not like things can get any WORSE." HAHAHAHA. HA. Chickadee just scored herself a sports medicine doc and some regular physical therapy, possibly because someone realized there was a doctor we hadn't seen/needed yet. But I have to say I do like the concrete nature of this particular problem. ("You have iliotibial band syndrome and that is fixed via rest, ice, anti-inflammatories, and physical therapy." It's such a nice change from "We don't...
I was feeling pretty good yesterday, which was surely my first mistake. Sure, the pollen count is SO HIGH (how high is it?) that no one can breathe, but whatever. Details. Yesterday evening Chickadee commenced falling into giant chunks of woe and sickness, and the FANFUCKINGTABULOUS thing about the combination of 1) chronic illness and 2) TEH DRAMAAAAHZ is that it can be very difficult to suss out what is a real crisis and what is merely a teenage crisis. It took the threat of a trip to the ER and about an hour on the phone with various doctors to determine a course of action and decide she...
In the continuing saga of My Oh My What Exactly IS Wrong With This Chickadee Kid, Anyway... a while back one of her doctors sent us to another doctor who sent us to a third doctor. And she told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on, and... oh, wait. That's a shampoo commercial, not what happened to us with the doctor. My mistake. (But your hair really DOES smell terrific.) Anyway, we met with this new doctor---we'll call him Dr. Zebra, for reasons which will make no sense to anyone but me and Chickie, who leaned over to me the moment we left his office that first time...
I used to pray for patience, you know, because I figured that was what I needed. But it turns out that if you pray for patience you get a whole lot of "character building" experiences wherein your patience is "tested" and you want to say "lots of blasphemous and profane things" to whoever's in charge. Go figure. (I swear to you I just typed "Fo gigure," and almost left it like that, but after admitting to such poor behavior, I reasoned it was best not to further tempt fate just now.) But hey, sometimes I learn things! Slowly, sure---always pretty slowly---but I am capable of learning and...
Oh, hey. Sorry to leave you hanging for a week. I didn't mean to, it just sort of... happened. It turns out that when my kid is in the hospital my level of functioning reverts to "barely alive" and I am a total delight to be around. Like, Otto will come home from work and say, "How was your day?" and I'll blink at him and say, "I'm not sure." Then he'll say, "What's for dinner?" and I'll say, "Dinner?" Actual conversation we had this week: Me: Why did you marry me? Our life is a mess. I'm a mess. Otto: Well you weren't ALWAYS a mess. I assume eventually you'll not be a mess again. Me:...
