"It's her first day back to full days," I told the group of moms standing by the flagpole waiting to pick their elementary schoolers up, knowing two out of three of them had no idea what that really meant or what a big deal that was.
For months, our lives had been hijacked by her medical issues...her life hijacked worst of all. The past three months the doctors had her go for half days only because her little body couldn't handle the energy exertion and trying to be "on" all day while she was having so much pain. She needed weekly IVs and a bunch of lab tests run and rerun to see if she needed to be sent to a bigger hospital like the Mayo Clinic. She needed to take about 19 pills a day, a couple of them medications, and others which were supplements and minerals to help with the weight loss and bone loss that were side effects of the medication. She spent most of her afternoons at home resting, taking pills, and eating a ton to try to gain the lost weight
I felt like such a failure.
We were late to the doctor's office for my daughter's appointment,
then our ride was late to pick us up (I can't drive right now because
of my foot injury) and so we sat outside in the sun which added insult
to injury because she was already feeling overheated.
My daughter wasn't happy with how the appointment went, or with
wanting to go in the first place, and thought the treatment didn't
work because she felt worse afterwards.
"But none of those things are your fault!" my friend said. "And what
you did was extraordinary! You got her (with help) to an appointment
2.5 hours away, and got her in there and through her treatment even
with a broken foot! That's like gold medal material! You took her to
the best doctor, to give the treatment the very best shot at working!
You listened compassionately to her as she complained even though you
wanted to complain too. You held her even though you were weary.
I saw her number calling on my phone and felt it in my gut. Something
was wrong. She never called, always updated me by text, so this must
be urgent.
I answered my phone and heard our babies' birth mom say, "I think I'm
losing them. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry..." and then go on to describe
what she thought was the start of a pretty abrupt miscarriage at the
bus stop a few minutes ago. I asked if she was okay, and told her that
was just as important to me as the babies. She said she was, that she
had called her doctor and her husband had come home from work to be
with her. I told her I appreciated her call so much and that I'd call
back in a little bit to check on her.
I hung up and was in action mode. I had to do something with our four
year old so that I could process this and make the necessary phone
calls without her overhearing. Oh, how could this be happening? Just
yesterday she was having morning sickness, everything seemed so
norm
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