So I'm sorry to point out here at the beginning of Part 3, that the end of Part 2 was pretty ugly.
I can only imagine it seemed selfish and immature and short-sighted and that's because it was. What mother is sad when her child is sent home from the hospital? What wife is ungrateful for the privilege of spending the day with her family in lieu of sticking her man with 'round the clock Daddy Duty for who knows how long?! What godly person gets SO bent out of shape about one particular prayer not being answered?
Now, let me say one thing here real quick: I never thought Daniel was in any danger. I would never want something for myself that I thought would be detrimental to my son. The sum total of all our experience is that whenever Daniel gets admitted for a fever, we stay in the hospital until the fever goes down, the ANC comes up, and that's it. He doesn't even usually feel yucky! I know, however, that some of you have fought some scary-nasty infections alongside cancer so I'm deeply sorry if this seems sacrilegious to you. Our hospital stays have never had much more to do with anything other than geography but still, people, it's almost ridiculous to write a disclaimer because the raw unvarnished truth is this: the whole thing was pretty ugly.
I woke up Friday morning feeling positively cheated out of a refreshing vacation experience with my young son who also felt cheated, and though Daniel recovered, I could not pull myself together. Such opportunities withheld! Such rest not provided! Such UNpacking to do! In my journal I likened it to doing all the hard work for a much-needed vacation - planning, packing, driving, then arriving at my destination only to do all the work in reverse, late at night, and then getting up in the morning for a long day of work! I sat at my computer journaling and crying and generally throwing a temper tantrum over not getting my way.
Ahhhhhhhh, there's the rub. Shoot!
I realized in a shock of devastating personal exposure that my entire problem in one sentence was that I was throwing a fit about not getting my way. And "my way" was even stupid! After 4 kids, 1 miscarriage, 7 years of medical school, and a cancer diagnosis, I seriously thought I was a little bit more "over" myself than this! It was a discouraging revelation to say the least.
Then I was sitting there writing, weeping, and generally being human soup all over the place having to also recognize that, in addition to all my disappointment and feelings of being exhausted and overwhelmed by the days ahead, I was also failing grossly in almost every critical department!!! Aaaaggghhhh!!!!!! And on that note I had to go out to the kitchen and teach school. It's almost a little bit comical now that I'm looking back, but that morning I was an absolute wreck.
When I came out of my office, it became evident that Daniel still had a fever. Mixed feelings all around (for which I felt like a big jerk again - still? some more? Whatever . . .). He was still perky and "himself", but his fever was persistent. We had been told that his ANC number was "good" for 24 hours even with fever, but I didn't really want to wait until 7 p.m. to start the whole ER process again, plus we had indication from labs the night before that he might require a blood transfusion so I wanted to do that (if needed) at clinic rather than in the ER. After I called the clinic nurse and received some direction, Chad and I decided that if the fever was still high at 1:00-1:30, I would take him back. Thankfully I could take him to the West side PCH urgent care/clinic that time. Except no, wait! We needed an appointment for that. Except no, wait! We got an appointment, cool. Except no, wait! They couldn't do that after all, so back to the main campus we would have to go. But clinic, right? Nope, we'd need an appointment for that . . . I relayed this information to Chad in a text signed: Love, The Human Yo-Yo. The whole thing did absolutely nothing for my already rotten disposition.
Finally we were re-packed and on our way with a fever that had not dipped below 100.4 all day. I was grateful to be going because I was getting a little concerned about that fever, and I didn't relish the idea of going all weekend with Daniel's hemoglobin teetering right around at the acceptable level. Daniel and I both absolutely abhor when he has to have a blood transfusion, but I'm told hemoglobin is pretty important so I was glad we were checking on it. Daniel was glad we were going because it gave him another shot at getting admitted, and, even though I was concerned about his health at that point, I have to confess that I was with him on that one. But only because I'm a jerk.
We got there, got inside, prayed over our desired outcome even as we discussed the possibility of the opposite happening, Daniel endured two more IVs - sheesh!, the antibiotics flowed once again and we waited, waited, waited. Tomato soup and hot chocolate were ordered and they got there just in time because the verdict was in: his ANC was down to 480. We were staying.
Buuuuuuut . . . you've all heard it said, "Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it!"? You'll see very soon why that one sentence rolled around and around in my head for the next three days.
To Be Continued . . .
I can only imagine it seemed selfish and immature and short-sighted and that's because it was. What mother is sad when her child is sent home from the hospital? What wife is ungrateful for the privilege of spending the day with her family in lieu of sticking her man with 'round the clock Daddy Duty for who knows how long?! What godly person gets SO bent out of shape about one particular prayer not being answered?
Now, let me say one thing here real quick: I never thought Daniel was in any danger. I would never want something for myself that I thought would be detrimental to my son. The sum total of all our experience is that whenever Daniel gets admitted for a fever, we stay in the hospital until the fever goes down, the ANC comes up, and that's it. He doesn't even usually feel yucky! I know, however, that some of you have fought some scary-nasty infections alongside cancer so I'm deeply sorry if this seems sacrilegious to you. Our hospital stays have never had much more to do with anything other than geography but still, people, it's almost ridiculous to write a disclaimer because the raw unvarnished truth is this: the whole thing was pretty ugly.
I woke up Friday morning feeling positively cheated out of a refreshing vacation experience with my young son who also felt cheated, and though Daniel recovered, I could not pull myself together. Such opportunities withheld! Such rest not provided! Such UNpacking to do! In my journal I likened it to doing all the hard work for a much-needed vacation - planning, packing, driving, then arriving at my destination only to do all the work in reverse, late at night, and then getting up in the morning for a long day of work! I sat at my computer journaling and crying and generally throwing a temper tantrum over not getting my way.
Ahhhhhhhh, there's the rub. Shoot!
I realized in a shock of devastating personal exposure that my entire problem in one sentence was that I was throwing a fit about not getting my way. And "my way" was even stupid! After 4 kids, 1 miscarriage, 7 years of medical school, and a cancer diagnosis, I seriously thought I was a little bit more "over" myself than this! It was a discouraging revelation to say the least.
Then I was sitting there writing, weeping, and generally being human soup all over the place having to also recognize that, in addition to all my disappointment and feelings of being exhausted and overwhelmed by the days ahead, I was also failing grossly in almost every critical department!!! Aaaaggghhhh!!!!!! And on that note I had to go out to the kitchen and teach school. It's almost a little bit comical now that I'm looking back, but that morning I was an absolute wreck.
When I came out of my office, it became evident that Daniel still had a fever. Mixed feelings all around (for which I felt like a big jerk again - still? some more? Whatever . . .). He was still perky and "himself", but his fever was persistent. We had been told that his ANC number was "good" for 24 hours even with fever, but I didn't really want to wait until 7 p.m. to start the whole ER process again, plus we had indication from labs the night before that he might require a blood transfusion so I wanted to do that (if needed) at clinic rather than in the ER. After I called the clinic nurse and received some direction, Chad and I decided that if the fever was still high at 1:00-1:30, I would take him back. Thankfully I could take him to the West side PCH urgent care/clinic that time. Except no, wait! We needed an appointment for that. Except no, wait! We got an appointment, cool. Except no, wait! They couldn't do that after all, so back to the main campus we would have to go. But clinic, right? Nope, we'd need an appointment for that . . . I relayed this information to Chad in a text signed: Love, The Human Yo-Yo. The whole thing did absolutely nothing for my already rotten disposition.
Finally we were re-packed and on our way with a fever that had not dipped below 100.4 all day. I was grateful to be going because I was getting a little concerned about that fever, and I didn't relish the idea of going all weekend with Daniel's hemoglobin teetering right around at the acceptable level. Daniel and I both absolutely abhor when he has to have a blood transfusion, but I'm told hemoglobin is pretty important so I was glad we were checking on it. Daniel was glad we were going because it gave him another shot at getting admitted, and, even though I was concerned about his health at that point, I have to confess that I was with him on that one. But only because I'm a jerk.
We got there, got inside, prayed over our desired outcome even as we discussed the possibility of the opposite happening, Daniel endured two more IVs - sheesh!, the antibiotics flowed once again and we waited, waited, waited. Tomato soup and hot chocolate were ordered and they got there just in time because the verdict was in: his ANC was down to 480. We were staying.
Buuuuuuut . . . you've all heard it said, "Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it!"? You'll see very soon why that one sentence rolled around and around in my head for the next three days.
To Be Continued . . .
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