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Saturday
Saturday I was exhausted. I woke up at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I couldn’t do my weekly crock pot lunches for Aaron and me because my shopping trip time was Thursday evening, when dad had his heart attack.
After a Skype call with my mother-in-law, I took IL4 to visit my dad in the hospital. He was a little less well-behaved than Friday, but we survived. Then D14, Aaron, and I watched an episode of X-Files, during which I fell asleep. I also slept through part of dinner with Aaron and my friend Liz, and part of the play “It’s an Honerable Life,” (performed in the Klingon language).
I was sleeping fine when my rude nephew J19 woke me at 2am with a call, asking me to order him an Uber home. It took a couple hours to fall back to sleep.
Sunday
Sunday morning my voice was going in and out and I had a minor cough and sore throat. I know my client doesn’t want to get sick, so I texted him, and he said not to come in. Which was disappointing, since we need the money, but at least I was available to pick dad up from the hospital. He’s home again.
In the evening the family watched “Spirited Away” and then decorated the Christmas tree.
Monday
Monday I was very productive. I made Gumbo for Aaron and my work lunches. I did some housework, and did a virtual doctor appointment for IL4. Then I took him to school, and I ran a bunch of errands and made several phone calls.
In the late afternoon, the orthopedic oncologist I spoke to a few weeks ago called me. He said he’d discussed my case with some colleagues, and they suggested that he should give me a CT scan of my tailbone, and if the tumor was, indeed, attached to the bone (as opposed to being a nerve tumor) he wanted to remove and biopsy it. Ugh. That sounds painful. And like I won’t be able to get stuff done for a while.
In the evening, IL4 had swim lessons and M11 had Boy Scouts.
Tuesday
Tuesday was busy. I went almost directly from work to pick up D13 for her appointment. But I’d double-booked myself, so when I dropped her off, I took dad to the dentist to get his top teeth pulled. I left him there, and went back to D13’s appointment to take part in the last 20 minutes. Afterwards, I picked up dad and dropped D13 off at school.
After making phone calls and running errands, I took dad to his physical therapy appointment for his shoulder. During his appointment, I was able to run one more errand and make more phone calls.
In the evening, IL4 was rewarded with extra TV time after his bedtime routine started because he pooped in the toilet!!!
Wednesday
Wednesday was extremely frustrating. I had a nasty cold which made thinking and staying awake really hard. I was supposed to get an oil change immediately after work, but D14 texted about this horrible sore throat where even breathing was horrible. So I had to cancel the oil change to take her to urgent care. Even though I did the “save my spot” function to reduce the waiting room time, we ended up waiting an hour after being roomed.
Then I took dad to his cardiac MRI – only to realize he wasn’t supposed to take caffeine within 12 hours. I had been told that by one person, and then told 1 hour by another, and for some reason I believed the second person, even though she really wasn’t an expert on the subject. So we needed to reschedule for January. They were depending on that cardiac MRI to determine why he had a heart attack, so I’m really feeling like a failure. I keep reminding myself that I have a lot on my plate right now, and I’m bound to drop a ball, but this was an important ball.
I had been going to take M11’s trombone to the music shop because he dropped a pen cap down the slide of his trombone. The music shop is almost a half hour away, and is on the way to the location with the MRI, but M11 took it to school. So now I’ll have to make a special trip.
By the end of the day, my throat hurt, by eyes were bloodshot and stinging, I had a headache, and my brain was foggy. That was on top of feeling like a failure.
Thursday
Thursday I awoke with the cold symptoms again. Yuck. D14 had a video appointment, then dad had a PCP appointment. Dad’s doctor made me feel better about messing up the cardiac MRI instructions by saying that they were only doing it because they can’t run the other tests right now. That the MRI would give them an indication, but they really needed to run the other tests.
By the time I got home from dad’s appointment, I was almost convinced I had an ear infection. I asked Aaron to come home early and get IL5 off the bus, and signed up on save-my-spot on urgent care. But by the time I should be leaving for urgent care, my ear felt a little better, and I decided not to waste my time at urgent care.
It was IL5’s birthday, so we opened presents and had a cake for D14 and IL5. I don’t usually combine their birthdays, but there was a lot going on this year. D14 understood, and I think IL5 really liked blowing out candles at the same time as D14. The cake had a dinocorn on it.
Friday
Friday is kinda a blur because I was feeling so tired from the pressure and pain in my ear. It started with bringing IL5 to the hospital to get another gut x-ray. His gastroenterologist wanted to see how we’re doing at keeping his gut from backing up. To make the trip more fun, he decided to walk backwards a good deal of the way, and allowing this behavior is often faster and less stressful than fighting it.
Then I took him to feeding therapy, where he actually lay down on the floor and rolled to our location. He apparently proceeded to ignore the therapist as if she weren’t in the room for the next 45 minutes.
Then, I told him we were in a rush to get home, and that he would get to stay with M11 while my dad and I were at an appointment. He refused to move (or struggled against being carried) until I said he could come along with me and dad.
Once at the hospital with dad and me, he slithered down the stairs like a snake. But luckily we were early, so he didn’t really cause us problems.
Dad’s MRI of his arm was meant to tell us whether he has cancer. It took 1.5 hours of lying in the machine on his broken shoulder (I’d asked if we could wait until the shoulder was healed, but the doctor was in a rush for this). Then, they released him into the labyrinthine recesses of the hospital without telling him how to get back to the waiting room. So he got lost.
Meanwhile, IL5 was upset and screaming about how he wanted to go with Bobby. Finally, he tipped the round table in the waiting room over, rolled it to a new position, righted it, and used it as a footrest. But at least he was happy again.
After all of that, the results of the MRI were inconclusive, and the radiologist suggested either a CT scan of the elbow, or an MRI of the elbow. I haven’t told dad this yet, because he was very reluctant to get checked for cancer in the first place.
I got home feeling miserable and tired due to my ear ache.
Week’s Photos
Letters Written
- 1 letter Massachusetts
Reading to myself
- Great Mythologies of the World
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Run, Hide, Repeat by Pauline Dakin
Reading to IL4
- The Great Mathemachicken: Hide and Go Beak, by Nancy Krulik
D13 reading
- The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World, by Any Reed
Media Completed
When Q is sent down to show the brave Klingon warrior Baily that life is better than an honorable death, he must flashback through time to see why. This was hilarious – filled with Star Trek jokes. Performed in Klingon with English subtitles.
Chihiro must rescue her parents from the wicked witch that runs a bathhouse for spirits. This movie is so funny as well as cute and engaging. The kids loved it – even the 4 year old.
Hibernator's Library 