Swine Flu Vaccine for L part one

We did it, we got it, he was very very brave and thankfully showed no adverse side effects besides a bit of raspy breathing and extreme tiredness. He's not really looking very well in general right now but we're carrying on as normal and will do the booster shot in 4 weeks time.
Two days before the vaccine I had a horrible reminder of how nights with L used to be, before we cleared the obstruction in his airway and got our lives back.
He took a bad turn during dinner, had a temperature, was so upset after he went to bed and because of the cold he had his breathing was terrible.
In the wee small hours of the morning I lay with my little boy, trying to work out what to do and listening to him labouring to breathe once more. Each breath took such effort and the memory of that movement and noise made me realise it was a year almost to the day since his operation.
I wondered then as I have a few times recently, how any of us managed to cope with all that stress and confusion of knowing that our baby wasn't breathing and we couldn't do anything to help.
It's testament to his strength that he thrived at all for the 6 months that those tonsils and adenoids hid and did their damage. And it's testament to mine that I got through those nights and continued to face all the scary results that we got along the way, until we found the actual cause.
So Sunday 12am, there I stood with a bag packed for us both, really trying to retread those neural pathways of how to be emergency mum, having forgotten when I needed to press the alarm that would take us to hospital.
I finally agreed with hubby that perhaps the safest thing to do was stay here and watch him closely rather than take a trip we weren't sure we needed and expose him to unnecessary hospital germs.
So the next morning after no sleep I was glad to see Louis looking brighter, and proud to see that we'd coped with it at home.
Has it really been such a great year as to not have had to use that skill for so long?
For that, and for every sweet and unobstructed breath he takes, I am forever thankful.

By George, I think she's got it!

very middle class comment alert....
while in therapy last night (see?) I realised as I gently ranted about all the stress that has been happening (waiting for 8 weeks for test results for my little boy for some horrid disorder, finally got them, all negative but the problems remain), work stress, blah blah
I realised that I am not feeling as bi-polar as I was, all wooo things are great, or eeeeuuuuugggh, things are awful.
I was just sitting there, talking calmly, looking at my emotions, feeling what I was feeling, but wasn't numb, wasn't angry, wasn't elated, wasn't crying...was....SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN

Thumb ridges and other stories

today on the tube I found myself idly tracing the line of my right thumbnail. Waking out of my lethargy, I realised that the deep ridge that I became aware of in July, had finally reached the tip and was one emery swipe from oblivion.
odd way to start I know, but stay with me...


So I've been thinking recently about the physical side effects of stress. How the body responds to the adrenaline rush of stress, you know, fight or flight and all that...
In cases of long term stress (horrid stuff like bomb or rape victims and those with PTSD, or even parents of kids with disabilities) that rush of coping adrenaline doesn't get to go back to the resting calm state because the "threat" is constant.
So where does all that adrenaline go and what does it do to your body? your heart, your lungs, your skin, nails, all without you knowing? What long term physical effects are storing up in my cells right now.
You see I'm pretty good at making sure the kids and hubby get their 5 a day, eat a balanced diet, get exercise, but I have to really push to remember I need to do that too.
Which leads me back to the tube today and that thumbnail.
I drew a pretty picture in my pretty pink notebook back in July 10th. It was of my thumbnail in profile and it showed a ridge about 3/4 of the way down, a deep, marked "what happened there?" kind of ridge.
Charting it back I calculated that this "body to thumb assault" happened back in April, just as the postman delivered my letter about Jacob's invisible school place. Now here we are at the start of September and the ridge has run out of nail as we prepare for him to start school in just a few weeks. In fact, you'd never know it was there.

When I went into therapy over 2 years ago, I labelled myself as searching for long term coping mechanisms for this lovely life I'm blessed to be challenged by. Last night as I came back to this safe place after the summer break, I realised that was a crock of shit.
2 years on and I still haven't looked at the long term, partly because I get frozen in a panic of coping due to the fullness of my day to day.

What's been going on in my body, my heart, since the "life" in my life happened back in Summer 2003 with the diagnosis of my mum's cancer and everything since.

So I'm making a short, quiet promise to myself to try and look closely at changes I need to make to my life. Because if all the pressure and upset I had over those last 5 months due to school could do that to my nail, what else might be lurking inside from the last 6 years?

Patience

I seem to be undoing all my hard work these last few weeks
So long patience.
Sayonara to not worrying about things that haven't happened yet.
When was the last time I breathed properly, or found some time for me, or sat on the couch, nicely out of focus, relaxing and clearing my mind?
Looks like I'm back to overwhelmed.
Back to focusing on all I have to do and having no time for anything else outside of that.
I'm sure I'm listening as I talk to people. I know I heard every word that my darling sis said on the phone at the weekend but can I recall a word of it now? Not really, well at least, not the nice words...there's a shadow of the scary "I'm worried about you" ones but I don't really want to look at those.
New childcare arriving in the country tomorrow.
Been writing a dossier on how to run my life for me at home while I'm at work running everyone else's. Work is my sanity but also my undoing, because it takes me away from my babies (I know they're not babies, but I can't help talking about them in that way when I express my longing to be with them more)
I do know that working is right for now, and is necessary, and I'm good at it. The kindness of employers makes me grateful, and I get to do all the hospital stuff I need and I know what it's done for my confidence to be back doing what I did for so long and so successfully.
But I also know that I can't go on like this forever.
Start planning now for the day when I come off red alert and might want to think about what other options I have out there.
Aren't blogs funny? writing and writing into the ether...noone reading it and once I get over the slight humiliation that comes from the act of writing, and consider the fact that I'm not doing it for anyone but me, it almost feels enjoyable.
but it's still odd. writing into a void and... actually, the humiliated fear feeling I get each time is that maybe someone is reading it and I'll be rumbled.
rumbled for what I don't know.

Underlying Health Issues

Underlying Health Issues.
Three words that you read as the excuse for all the recent swine flu deaths.
I see these words everywhere, in all the stats and all the news stories and the macabre mummy in me wants full details of what they mean.
So far I've guesses at tonsilitis, some kind of lung thing and probably lots of colds that happened to be raped and pillaged and mutated by H1N1.
You see I'm so used to interrogating every medical aspect of my little man's life, I'm thinking of studying medicine so I never have to rely on a doctor's opinion at all. So when I read something like this, something that could easily be the difference between getting over a case of swine flu (which did I mention is just one away from us at work, in the family, at nursery...) I need to know more
I need to pry and have details because my house is full of underlying health issues, complicating the ordinary run of our lives and meaning I have be as observant as I am.
So when does an underlying health issue become an overarching excuse for tragedy and illness?
Is there more I can do than ruthlessly medicating to get rid of the horrid ear infection in one boy, and checking the temperature and watching and listening for the slightest physical sign of change in them both.
yet there's a rattle in my chest and a cold that won't go away that I'm seemingly in denial about.
does that count as Underlying?
can my underlying infect them and turn into theirs?
it's all so confusing and I fear I've finally tipped into neuroticism?
how do I avoid us being part of those headlines?
how do I get them to take my vulnerable little boy seriously?
and will we get to go on holiday on Sunday?

ooh, some good news...

I've been worrying and fretting quietly to myself about whether I can handle this school appeal tomorrow and it's been a genuine concern about what it would do to my sanity.
I now find myself in the unfamiliar situation of feeling happy and calm. That's because I just had a call from admissions telling me that we don't need to come to the appeal, because the school had agreed to take on more children and therefore Jacob has a place. The nice woman on the phone probably hadn't been prepared for the gushing and thanks and general outpouring she got from me.
I want to know how it's possible and what we need to do but also, suspicious me wants to wait for the letter so I know it's not a big joke.
So, this not a post blarting on about how screwed up the appeals process is and how cruel the bureaucrats within it are.
This is a post to say I'm smiling, I don't feel sick and I think I can begin to plan a workable way to look after my kids, work full time and get back to the business of everyday life.
hooray.

Somewhere In Between

So often I find myself overwhelmed, then I pull it together and slip back into underwhelmed.
I am very excited to know how it feels to be somewhere in between.
Middlewhelmed. Midwhelmed?
sounds a bit rubbish...maybe once I coin a linguistically acceptable phrase for it, I'll be on my way there.
any suggestions welcome.