Well, the good news is that Peach made it through surgery just fine and they won't know what follow up treatment she will need until her tests come back. She goes home tomorrow. Since hospitals get mastectomy patients in and out so quickly these days, I have started wondering if they ask the patients if they want fries with their mastectomies. No coddling of patients, no gentle nurse after-care and easing back into your altered life...but then MERSA (the hospital illness) is also a big problem too, so who knows which is worse.
The bad news is that after assessing how I'm feeling now I've decided not to go to Santa Barbara this weekend. It's actually not a matter of how I'm feeling, but how I'm looking and sounding. I'm feeling 100% better than yesterday. The fever left last night. The sore throat is almost gone, but the cough has settled in and I sound like a TB ward. Just what a mother wants around her small children.
There is also a party planned for my brother-in-law's 60th birthday and just what a house full of revelers don't want is someone sounding like a TB ward.
So I've told Walt he should go by himself, watch Bri's game for me, read the girls the books I made for them and enjoy Joe's party. No, no...don't worry about me, I say, hand held dramatically to my forehead. I'll be just fine.
He offered to rent a car for the drive so I would not be stranded at home without a car, but I figured if I'm really going to kick this thing, staying at home is exactly what I need to do. Having no car will give me an excuse to sit in recliner with a couple of gallons of water at my elbow, a Chihuahua in my lap, eat bon bons and watch marathon TV. Things could be worse.
But I'm disappointed at missing the time with the girls that I had been looking forward to so much.
I remember the very first time that I realized I was grown up. I had a flu, much similar to what I have now. I was living in an apartment by myself (around the corner from Mike and Char). I was feverish and feeling awful and I had to get my own water, find my own Kleenex, and moan to myself because there was nobody to hear me. And when I thrashed around and tore a big hole in the down filled quilt my mother had given to me, I was the only one there to clean up all the feathers that filled the apartment, even though I was dealing with a fever.
I wanted my mommy,but she wasn't there.
My mother was great when either Karen or I were sick. There would be a paper bag pinned to the bed sheet for us to put our used tissues in. I remember chicken noodle soup. And she changed the sheets each day. How wonderful it felt to get into crisp, clean sheets after sweating in bed all night. If it were a stomach flu, there would be a basin next to the bed in case we needed to vomit and couldn't make it to the bathroom.
I was a voracious reader and she would go to the library and take out books for me.
I still remember when she brought me "The Jungle Book," her favorite book as a kid. She raved about what a wonderful book it was and I know she was so happy to introduce me to it. The problem was that I didn't like it. To this day I never read it.
I thought about that book a lot as our kids were growing up -- especially Jeri, since she was our reader (until David came along). I wanted to share the books I loved so much with her, especially the dog and horse books that I devoured and read over and over again. But she never had any interest. She read and re-read "Little House on the Prairie," a book that never interested me (I'll bet it would have interested my mother)
I wasn't as caring a mother when our kids were sick, I don't think. I remember bits and pieces, like teaching David Lamaze breathing when he suffered almost continuous ear infections for years. He was an apt pupil and learned that if he concentrated on his breathing, he could control the pain in his ear.
But I don't think I ever pinned a bag to the sheets and I know I didn't change the bed linens every day.
I wonder if our kids noticed the difference the first time they were on their own and got sick...
I still miss my mommy when I'm sick but I'd have to drive to her house to get ministered to, and then I'd run the risk of giving whatever I have to her, so I won't (especially since I won't have a car this weekend anyway). Maybe I'll just call her and ask her to sing "soft kitty" to me....that's a Big Bang Theory reference, for those of you who don't watch that show)
I had to laugh. A re-read the entry I wrote one year ago ("The Long Wait for the Mail") and at the end of that entry I mentioned that my mother called and asked me to buy her some bread. That loaf of bread is still, untouched, in her freezer.
The bad news is that after assessing how I'm feeling now I've decided not to go to Santa Barbara this weekend. It's actually not a matter of how I'm feeling, but how I'm looking and sounding. I'm feeling 100% better than yesterday. The fever left last night. The sore throat is almost gone, but the cough has settled in and I sound like a TB ward. Just what a mother wants around her small children.
There is also a party planned for my brother-in-law's 60th birthday and just what a house full of revelers don't want is someone sounding like a TB ward.
So I've told Walt he should go by himself, watch Bri's game for me, read the girls the books I made for them and enjoy Joe's party. No, no...don't worry about me, I say, hand held dramatically to my forehead. I'll be just fine.
He offered to rent a car for the drive so I would not be stranded at home without a car, but I figured if I'm really going to kick this thing, staying at home is exactly what I need to do. Having no car will give me an excuse to sit in recliner with a couple of gallons of water at my elbow, a Chihuahua in my lap, eat bon bons and watch marathon TV. Things could be worse.
But I'm disappointed at missing the time with the girls that I had been looking forward to so much.
I remember the very first time that I realized I was grown up. I had a flu, much similar to what I have now. I was living in an apartment by myself (around the corner from Mike and Char). I was feverish and feeling awful and I had to get my own water, find my own Kleenex, and moan to myself because there was nobody to hear me. And when I thrashed around and tore a big hole in the down filled quilt my mother had given to me, I was the only one there to clean up all the feathers that filled the apartment, even though I was dealing with a fever.
I wanted my mommy,but she wasn't there.
My mother was great when either Karen or I were sick. There would be a paper bag pinned to the bed sheet for us to put our used tissues in. I remember chicken noodle soup. And she changed the sheets each day. How wonderful it felt to get into crisp, clean sheets after sweating in bed all night. If it were a stomach flu, there would be a basin next to the bed in case we needed to vomit and couldn't make it to the bathroom.
I was a voracious reader and she would go to the library and take out books for me.
I still remember when she brought me "The Jungle Book," her favorite book as a kid. She raved about what a wonderful book it was and I know she was so happy to introduce me to it. The problem was that I didn't like it. To this day I never read it.
I thought about that book a lot as our kids were growing up -- especially Jeri, since she was our reader (until David came along). I wanted to share the books I loved so much with her, especially the dog and horse books that I devoured and read over and over again. But she never had any interest. She read and re-read "Little House on the Prairie," a book that never interested me (I'll bet it would have interested my mother)
I wasn't as caring a mother when our kids were sick, I don't think. I remember bits and pieces, like teaching David Lamaze breathing when he suffered almost continuous ear infections for years. He was an apt pupil and learned that if he concentrated on his breathing, he could control the pain in his ear.
But I don't think I ever pinned a bag to the sheets and I know I didn't change the bed linens every day.
I wonder if our kids noticed the difference the first time they were on their own and got sick...
I still miss my mommy when I'm sick but I'd have to drive to her house to get ministered to, and then I'd run the risk of giving whatever I have to her, so I won't (especially since I won't have a car this weekend anyway). Maybe I'll just call her and ask her to sing "soft kitty" to me....that's a Big Bang Theory reference, for those of you who don't watch that show)
I had to laugh. A re-read the entry I wrote one year ago ("The Long Wait for the Mail") and at the end of that entry I mentioned that my mother called and asked me to buy her some bread. That loaf of bread is still, untouched, in her freezer.
1 comment:
Glad you're feeling better, but sorry you had to miss your "granddaughter weekend".
I had to smile at your comparison between your mom and Jeri. Grandmothers and granddaughters always have things in common and are allies. After all, they have a common "enemy" - the generation in the middle. 8^)
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