Life, life, and then some.

I've wanted to write about this for weeks now, but I haven't had the words. They hadn't come to me yet, the way they normally do, and I think that's because I'm still living in it. I'm back in the tornado again. Everything is happening so fast, and I can't predict the future anymore or even control it in the usual way. Everything is Topsy Turvey. 

A doctor told me Lazlo will be discharged from the hospital in one to two weeks, but then I got a call, as I held my feverish 5 year old in my arms, and the caller was another doctor saying Lazlo was going to be released in two days. In TWO DAYS. 

IN TWO DAYS.

This is the moment I've been waiting for, but never quite held in my day dreams, for fear it would never cover true. And now here it is.

But when you live the moment you've been waiting for, there's also so much more happening around you, as this Great Big Moment approaches. 

There are friendships that are quickly turning into life lines, of the sort I haven't seen since my jolly suburban housewife stint in rehab for painkillers. We addicts would meet on the driveway for a smoke break, every break in the day of rehab, or detox, and we quickly became family. That's happening here at the Ronald McDonald House, too (minus the cigarettes for me this time). The friends I've made here, other parents surviving their crisis, congregating outside after their sick kids have gone to bed, are becoming my closest allies. Along with the few close friends in my life before all this that have been able to meet me where I stand. When you're living in crisis mode, striped down to your core, all pretenses gone, you start to see the truth in people. That's why these friendships are the type that sick to your bones, and stay with you for life. You will remember these people for as long as you live, these war buddies of yours.

And now, days later, I sit here in the half-built nursery of my little mountain home, the place I haven't been to in nearly five months, since October. I have thrush and mastitis, the nursing problems of the pump and the preemie. I have only one twin, because Lazlo was supposed to be released today, but his  eyesight is getting worse, and they need to keep him three more days, when they will examine his eyes again. 

My heart is aching as I realize he will continue to lay alone in his hospital crib, a baby without a mother. 

My heart is aching that he will have lifelong issues to contend with. Will he have seizures, like me?

My heart is aching that I need to spend this time packing instead of holding and bonding with this precious newborn I do have, who needs a mother just as badly as his twin. 

My heart aches for my two other children, who have been shuffled around for so long, and now their home is gone, to be turned in to a vacation rental.

We've been gone from our home for so long, the ants and ladybugs have moved in. This is their territory, now. I feel like the imposter. How will I settle myself back in and move myself out at the same time?

The ants crawl over my baby's blankets and my cell phone, as I hold it in my hand. They scare my toddler, who shrieks "The ants! The ants are gonna bite me!"

No, honey. They're just ants. They're just ants, and ants don't bite. They tickle.

 

 

Mother (sort of) on the edge

The realization that life is all completely out of my control is the most liberating thing that has ever happened to me. I can't change anything.

 I can't change the fact that I'm pumping breastmilk in a hotel room because my son started spontaneously vomiting last night, and you can't be sick at the Ronald McDonald House, but they will be kind enough to put you up in a hotel. Thankfully, he snapped back to normal before we even got to the hotel. It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. As we drove through the night to the designated hotel, my husband brought up the absurdity of being sent on a vacation because our son was sick. I countered with we should be used to absurdity by now, everything about our life was absurd. Why wouldn't I be driving through the night, in a car packed with bags haphazardly stuffed with clothes and toys, with my arm outstretched to the back seat holding a barf bucket? We dubbed it the Barfcation. In the morning, I took my all-better son exploring the property of the hotel, and it was nice. A moment for just the two of us, which is so rare these days, and soon to be rarer still. 

 

I can't change the fact that Lazlo needed his feeding tube readjusted, and I couldn't make him better when I heard his squeal, so I just covered my ears and ran to the cafeteria so as not to witness it.

I can't change so many things. But somehow, I'm finding my place amongst the chaos. I feel like I'm Dorothy, when her house is being whipped around the tornado on its way to Oz, and I'm past the point of hiding in bed. I'm actually doing OK for myself in my little tornado house, and I'm doing things like finding time in the mornings to do my hair and put on a little make up, while the house goes around and around in circles. I sit down at the checkered kitchen table and slowly sip a cup of coffee and bite into a croissant, while the wind blows my hair around my head. Then, when my house lands on the witch, I get up and stride outside to the Hospital Of Oz to visit my very own munchkins. 

It's a little like when I went to rehab, and I came out a completely different person. A stronger person. A person who stood up for herself, and voiced her opinions, and took care of herself. I'm a little like that person, again. The kind of person who knows what's really important, and doesn't take any shit. After spending 11 weeks essentially in isolation in my hospital room by myself, then suddenly being plunged back into family life, motherhood, where so many need so much of me, the temptation to lose myself to the demands of my life is great. It's overwhelming. But, once again, the Universe has taught me that I need to put my own oxygen mask on first. That's the truth about life, and I'm grateful to be reminded of it.

It's important to have fun.

It's important to take care of my own needs.

It's important to remember to laugh. To see the humor in everything, because there is. There really is. 

And then, little hints of how difficult my situation can be finds its way through the cracks. Gus was supposed to be released in a few days, and he had a set-back, so now he's not. I didn't handle it well. I forgot about how well he's been doing overall, not a single infection or crisis of any kind. I just cried, because my baby was coming home, and now he's not. He's not coming home yet. And I don't know when he will be. But his bed is here, waiting for him. Empty.