Ups and Downs

It’s hard to write when I just don’t feel like it. I’ve been putting this off for days. Normally when it’s time for a blog post, I feel glad to have an outlet for my thoughts, and I enjoy the challenge of composing clever paragraphs or witty captions. In my current sick state, however, I haven’t felt that lure. But just because I don’t feel like writing about life right now, it doesn’t mean that my dear family and friends don’t want to know what’s going on! So watch me overcome my mental lethargy, if only for a few minutes.

Every day is a new challenge. I’m surviving, mostly (Wallace of Wallace and Gromit says, “I’m inventing, mostly. Well I’m surviving mostly). Some days I feel good enough to shower. Most days I don’t. I spend every day in my recliner, letting everything go on around me.

Jay’s hair is growing so long. I’m the only one who cuts it, so he’ll probably have a pony tail by the time I’m ready to get out the buzzer again. Jay’s uncle Jasen has been giving him “party hair” on Sundays for church. Even though I prefer boys with buzz cuts, I do like how much strawberry-red shows up in Jay’s hair when it grows out a little.

These two get all rosy-cheeked after roasting in the car on the way home from church in this heat. I wonder when I’ll be able to go to church again.

Jay alternates between super-sweet and helpful to his pathetic mother and little IMP-child: grabbing, throwing, jostling, etc. Today was an impish day, but earlier this week, while I was moaning in my chair, Jay climbed up onto a stool, crawled over the counter, took a cooled baked potato out of the toaster oven, walked (on the counter) to the cabinet, got a bowl out, put the potato in the bowl, and chopped it up with a fork. Then he climbed down (somehow not dumping the mangled tater onto the floor) and brought it to me, all without being asked. Even my dulled sick emotions were touched. I wished that I could eat the potato just because he was so sure it would make me feel better. But instead I texted Jeff to come take it away because the smell made me want to hurl. I did make sure to say thank you so much to sweet Jay.

Another day Jay said “I like to help you feel better, Mommy.” He keeps asking me, “are you better, Mommy?” especially when I get back from the hospital. He can’t believe that I’ve been sick for so long. This week I went to the hospital twice (on Monday and Friday) to make use of my PICC line. That thing is so convenient! Ok, well, it’s like being a Shaina shish-kabob having a tube skewering from my arm to my heart, but I’m finally used to having the thing in me. And it’s awesome to be an outpatient at the hospital--way faster (and hopefully cheaper) than the ER. I can be in and out of there in just over an hour! They don’t even make me change clothes or pee in a cup. And the best part is I can go in whenever I want for a bag of saline juice and a shot of Zofran. No pokes. Just sweet relief. I think the PICC line has helped me stay on top of my ultrasickness because I don’t have to wait till I’m on death’s doorstep before I go in for fluids. I just notice when I’m behind on drinking (it happens every few days because swallowing is a chore), and I zoom on in for a top-off.

I’m still losing weight, but I don’t expect to start catching up for a few more weeks (when I can eat more than a few bites at a time). Needless to say, some (most) days I just feel AWFUL. When awful days combine with impish-Jay-days, I’m likely to cry. Like today, por ejemplo…

I sat by and let Jay and Rose unload the whole plastics drawer from the kitchen (I couldn’t stop them). They said they were making dinner. It was cute. After a while though, “dinner” was over, and Jay started chucking the dishes at me. Point-blank range. He even threw a shoe. Now I know it seems really easy to avoid or stop, but I asked him to stop nicely, and he didn’t. I couldn’t raise my voice or intervene physically. All I could do was cover my face with my blanket and feel like the most pathetic excuse for a mother EVER. I texted Jeff for backup and he came up and carted Jay off, but I was crying all over the place and it made me feel even sicker. I just hope that in the future, Jay can be the helper more often than he’s the attacker.

When you live in a recliner, you have to find the joy in small things. Rose’s grin is one of those things. After a bath, Jeff wraps her like a sweet little blue burrito and she waddles out to visit me, plastered hair streaming, cheeks grinning. I also like listening to Jeff take care of the kids: cook for them, bathe them, talk with them. In a way it’s fun to see how he does things. A lot of his methods are different than mine, but it’s ok. I just watch things unfold. Luckily I don’t feel tempted to call out advice from my corner unless I’m feeling particularly…let’s call it not-as-bad, so it’s not too hard to ONLY watch and not boss. I totally sympathize when I see Jeff having one of those “mom-days” where every little thing you try to do takes about 8 times as long because of kiddy delays. It amuses my stationary self to watch it rather than live it (even though I’d much rather live it!).

There’s nothing quite like post-bath euphoria.

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PS: I have no clue why that video is so huge. Oh well.