Time

Today. I came home from work. Content. Happy. To find Eliot, Naomi and Aron playing in the front yard. Content. Happy. The house smelled of chocolate chip cookies. The kids were full of dust from the yard.

1 year ago

2 years ago

3 years ago I got pregnant with Naomi.

4 years ago I was 6 months pregnant.

5 years ago something in me went crazy and I starting thinking having kids would be a good idea. It surprised me. It surprised Aron more.

Home. Home on the Range

We're all home. All 4 of us. 2 very tired adults. 2 very not sleeping kids.

Home.

Bellies full of True Thai food to celebrate our return.

Eliot on antibiotics. Naomi on some others.

36 hours in the hospital is so much more bearable than 12 days. It was a big deal. And not a big deal.

We didn't have to swallow new life-shattering news. I wasn't already burned out. We had daycare for Naomi already lined up.

Sigh.

Home.

Update

Eliot is still in the hospital. All of his tests have come back negative (except the strep throat culture which just needs more time). Lots of negatives are a good thing.

He clearly feels fine. Except for the fact that he is tired and cooped up beyond belief.

He wants to wander into the hall and do something. He can't. He is in isolation.

I wonder why he can't run around in the hall when he is sharing the same stale air as everyone.

Oh the mysteries of the medical deal.

So its all good news today.

The earliest they imagine discharging him is Wednesday. I'm going to beg and plead for Tuesday evening.

Every day is expensive and boring and dumb and they still haven't given me a reason to believe that he is in better shape there, bored, being woken up and kept up, eating salty, crap food than he would be at home running around, having fun, sleeping and eating decent food.

The only reason I've been given is a reason I haven't really been given.

And this is it in all of its dumb ass glory:

"If we let him go home and the 1 in a million thing happens and he gets hurt you'll sue us."

Thats the only reason I can manage to find that makes sense to keep him there.

When we sit down with our usual doctors I'm going to make them give me a reason better than that.

All of these great people saved Eliot's life.

And for that I am grateful.

All of what we're going through right now seems dumb to me. And for that I am not grateful.

Speaking of a This Fucking Sucks Day

Eliot is back in the hospital. This time must for 48-72 hours. I'm tired and bummed that my son who basically feels fine (except for the fact that they kept him up until 2am) is stuck in isolation (which just means he can't leave his room and everyone who comes in to care for him has to wear a funny yellow paper outfit) in a tiny over populated by technology room today.

It could suck worse. We've been at worse before.

Naomi isn't nursing. She is at school today. I have a job that will probably save me from dwelling on this too much.

We've done this before and we're doing it again.

And I'm going on maybe 95 minutes of sleep right now.

And I've been brought back to reality. We've been insanely lucky not to have this happen yet.

The doctors and nurses kept saying last night how surprised they are that they haven't seen us. They laughed that they don't know us. They usually know the leukemia patients well on 5B. They don't know us well.

That is a wonderful thing.

And right now they're over there getting to know Aron and Eliot well.

And last night they got to know my insane amount of smelly gas and horribly nasty smelling feet well.

They heard me ask to send Eliot home so he could sleep. They argued with me about waking him to give him medicine at 4am (I won). They negotiated with me about how often his blood pressure would be taken.

We've been lucky up until now not to be back there.

And I realize what a huge deal it is that I escaped for 4 days last weekend.

And reality is back in my face.

And Eliot will be fine. He had a fever. His blood counts were low. They'll watch him for 2 days and send him home to run and climb and be fine.

All is well. We're just having a bump in the all is well road.

And this does fucking suck.

And it could suck a whole lot worse.

What the Bleep Did you Say?

I haven't been posting much. There are several reasons for that.

1) I'm feeling happier and it has always been true that the happier I feel the less I journal and since my blogs have become my journals I'm here less often.

2) My life has been rearranged time-wise and I'm just haven't gotten into the habit of sitting down to write.

3) This is probably the biggest reason. I've been censoring myself. Many months ago I got nervous about strangers reading my blog and started censoring myself a little. Then I decided to make it private and the censoring ended a little bit.

Then I just started getting self-conscious about blogging for some reason and censored myself a little bit. Then I got over that.

Then in October I had a hard conversation about my use of the word 'fuck' on my blog and since then it's been really hard for me to not censor myself.

I've been keeping up with this blog for the past month and crying my eyes out just about every time I go there. This guy's story is heart wrenching. Horrible. Terrible.

Every time I've been there in the past month I've cried about his story and the amazing way he is telling it.

Today I went there and cried my eyes out because he is using 'fuck' on his blog and I missed my old freedom. My old willingness to put it all out there. My old naiveté. My old whatever it was.

I cried because I remember the days of saying 'this fucking sucks' as he recently did - in a chapel - at a memorial service.

I cried because I recognized how much I've held back here on my blog about what I'm going through since we've passed the 1 year mark of Eliot's treatment. And how much I held back during that anniversary time.

I cried because I realized how wimpy I've been.

In the throes of 'this fucking sucks' days I heard from young people and old people how thrilled they were that I was just saying it like it is. I even had a silly joke with a wise woman at church about the word fuck and we'd use the word liberally in emails.

I've been thinking that censoring myself on my blog is a good policy. It's public. I'm a priest's wife. I'm a mom. The list goes on.

I guess I sort of think that might be true.

And when I read Matt's blog I miss putting it all on the line. Saying how I really feel and not apologizing for it.

I don't know what to do about the whole thing.

In the meantime I'll probably keep blogging a little here and a little there and put the rest of it somewhere else.

I was gone last weekend from lunch time on Thursday until 8pm on Sunday evening. I slept in while I was gone. I did whatever the hell I wanted to do while I was gone. I saw good friends while I was gone. I ate wonderful meals while I was gone.

When I came home I was happy to see the kids. Really happy. I've been patient - mostly - since I got home. I've felt relaxed and pleasant to be around.

I honestly don't know when the last time is that I felt this way. I think perhaps some time in 2003.

Shit.

That is an awfully long time ago.

Perhaps it isn't that long ago.

I think it might be.

Dreams

I remember my dreams almost every morning. I have vivid dreams that fascinate me.

In college I used to bore the hell out of my boyfriend by telling him what I dreamt the night before. He would literally zone out. Aron does the same thing.

It sucks.

I don't talk about my dreams very much anymore because no one else around here seems to care and I just don't have anyone in my life who I talk to enough who seems into the whole thing. I really need to change that.

Yesterday Eliot said something about all of us flying on an airplane the night before. He asked me where we went and I told him we didn't go anywhere. He got angry and raised his voice and said we DID go somewhere and he wanted to know where.

Apparently Daddy and Mommy and Eliot and Naomi all flew on an airplane together.

The whole conversation (although frustrating) gave my heart a little start. Maybe someone else in the family is remembering their dreams!

This morning Eliot said he was singing last night. He could tell me the song or where he was when he sang it and he seemed a little confused about where he was.

Was it another dream remembered?

Lack of Funniness Strikes Again

That would be a great title for my blog post were it not such OLD news.

2 years ago for April Fools Day I posted that we adopted a rottweiler puppy. Many, many people fell for it. So many people, in fact, that I felt kind of bad about the whole thing.

I didn't feel badly enough not to try it again and this year I was really proud of my sophisticated joke with a picture of Eliot and a cute little puppy.

The truth is the weekend before April Fools Day we borrowed a dog with the option to keep. We didn't keep her. She and Eliot had a wonderful connection and he actually named her Molly. That in itself is extraordinary since Eliot gets mail every week from a good friend in Duluth who often sends cards with animals. Almost every week she says something in her note about how the animals on the card need names. Almost every week Eliot doesn't name those animals.

He named that cutie pie doggie tho.

Molly.

She is back at her house - we're back to our senses and I'm back to my huge lack of funny.

Welcome to the Family Molly

Molly joined us this last Friday afternoon. She weighs about 2 lbs. Her birthday is January 18th. She is exactly 1 year younger than Naomi.
She is potty training right along with the kids (luckily they don't run down to the basement to take a crap).