I haven't written in six months. I am not inspired.
A friend recently asked me what inspires me and I answered "grief". So I guess it's a good thing I am not inspired to blog right now. I do not have a lot of sadness.

But I am restless. I feel a need to release whatever pent up mid-life pre-menopausal issues are building.

I have been racking my brain about to write about. I can write about my kids, obviously. I can write about my friends, and the shifting dynamic that comes along with friendship in ones thirties. I can write about cancer and it's impact on my life, or dementia, as it currently impacts my life daily as I struggle with my mother.

What I have concluded is that it all intertwines, but how to weave it with words is the challenge.
What is the glue? What holds it together?
(I am also afraid of repetition. I hate when someone repeats something to me. Like I didn't hear it the first time.)

So, in an effort to un-stifle my creative talent, I will try to write..while completely exhausted and fully uninspired.

It's winter in Pennsylvania. We have had a very full winter. Full of kids, holidays, and one hospital trip.

Yes. And no, it was not asthma twin. It was my eight year old son, who since has had a birthday so at the time of the crisis, was only seven or "almost eight MOTHER!".

There is a fine line when a child is sick that all parents have gone through. Whether or not to go to the ER. If there is parent out there reading this that has not ever once considered rushing their child to the local ER when all common sense fails, then I am amazed.

Our son, the day after Thanksgiving, started complaining of a stomach ache. He is not usually a complainer, and definitely not a whiner, so I gave him some motrin and encouraged him to lay low until he felt better. At this time, I'm thinking either over indulgence at Thanksgiving dinner or stomach flu. He gets through the day, and that night comes in our room in the very early hours of the morning, probably 2am. "Mom, my belly hurts again." I give him some motrin and a glass of water, back to bed.
The next day we have more of the same, the 'belly ache' and some mild vomiting. I am sure he has the stomach flu and keep assuring him he would be fine by tomorrow. The night proves to be more of the same, and he has a hard time finding a comfortable place. He finally ends up on the couch with his dad, sleeping fetal on stomach, rear end in the air, knees tucked up under belly.
By Sunday mid-morning, he can't even straighten his right leg and I say to my husband, "I think we should take him to the ER for hydration. He needs a bag of saline."
My husband hems and haws..no one likes going to the ER, all the waiting and not knowing, and then some more waiting.
We go to the ER, where we wait for over an hour to see the physician on call. After deciding that perhaps a bag of saline would rehydrate him (didn't I already say this?) the doctor ran blood work. His counts came back very high. Obviously an infection. A cat-scan was ordered and he had to drink 16 oz of apple juice with contrast in it over a hour and a half.
Proceed to cat-scan, and escorted back to gurney.
Things started happening very fast after that.

His appendix had burst, had been ruptured and there was an ambulance on the way to get him to a bigger hospital.

That feeling is indescribable. If you want the worst feeling of fear, of not knowing, and of looking in the eyes of a scared child, this is your trip.

The ambulance arrives and my husband and I separate, I drive the car and he goes in the ambulance. We arrive at the larger hospital within twenty minutes and are met in that ER by a family friend, who is the mother of one of appendix-boy's best friends, and an OR nurse. She had put herself on the case to keep our child reassured that he was safe. As a mother I may never be able to thank her enough, because she made the experience bearable.
All this time, our son was completely stoic. No tears, no emotion, just focus on getting through the pain. He did not want to ride in the ambulance. He did not want to be put in a wheelchair and he did not want to be on a gurney. In the time frame of him being in the ER, and drinking all the contrast and being nervous, he signaled to his father and I that he needed to use the bathroom. A different nurse, who was doing his paperwork in the ER, brought him a bedpan and explained to him how to use it. Seven year old child, appendix burst, looked in her eyes and said "I don't do that."
He rolled off the gurney and walked/stumbled to the bathroom.
I am telling this for the people who know my son, his extreme stoic behavior and the fact that there was no way in hell was he using a bedpan. Ever.
As he lay in the ER, there was a woman in the next exam area, curtained off. My husband and I catch a glimpse of her through the curtain, she is suffering from what my husband calls 'carbuncles' (! please understand that I have no idea if this is even a medical term!) or open, huge sores all over her legs. She is moaning and groaning, yelling and vomiting as well. My son just lays on his gurney with his eyes as wide as pie plates. Next rolls in a man via wheelchair who begins vomiting FULL THROTTLE heaving and LOUDLY.
My son is literally in a state of shock at this point.
We meet the surgeon, we discuss what will happen, explain it to son.
At 12:02am he is wheeled into surgery with his surrogate 'mom'/nurse by his side. My husband leans in, kisses his forehead and tells him to be tough.
I lean in and in the four seconds it takes for me to put my cheek to his cheek and his left arm over my shoulder, his entire life to date floods to my head. I put my face in his neck and breathed his smell and kissed him goodbye.
He was a huge baby, all shoulders. I just wanted him OUT OF MY BODY at delivery and didn't heed my midwife's warning to 'slow down'..he had a purple head. Black hair and no sign of a neck anywhere. All shoulders.
He was a serious baby. Not overly smiley. He did a lot of staring and studying. He didn't talk or coo to himself.
When he was 18mos, he came off a swing onto pavement. Not having the best defense reaction yet, his face, namely his teeth suffered the consequences. Top four front teeth were knocked up in under his nasal cavity. We couldn't even see the actual teeth, just four big, bloody holes.
X-rays confirmed the teeth were there, and it would take almost a year for those teeth to fall back into place, only to find out the nerve damage was so severe that all teeth were removed before his third birthday.
The loss of the teeth did little to improve on his already serious personality.
Or his speech development.
Or his self esteem.
It is hard to learn to talk when first of all, it hurts. Secondly, without the teeth there, it's even worse to try to enunciate.
So he didn't even try. He talked to his father and myself. We were the only people on earth that could understand him.
He goes to kindergarten and struggles. Struggles at school work, the confined space of a room. He is insecure and it's hard for him to make friends. He has two. They understand his 'language' and serve as interpreters.
I begin the process of speech at age three, so by school age, he has an IEP. Constant paperwork, vigilant therapies. He hates it. He hates being different.
I take him to private therapy twice a week in a hospital 30 miles away, the very hospital where is appendix will be removed.
He loves the outdoors. He loves to ride four wheelers, he loves his dog. He loves to ride bike and play catch.
Two years later, child has amazing friends. He speaks very well. He has overcome huge obstacles to trust his environment. He is funny, articulate. He is athletic and has found his place on a football and baseball field. He loves his teacher. He loves his friends.
He laughs constantly.
He has long blond curly hair that he grows out because 'the chicks dig it MOM!' and 'Shaun White the snowboarder has smokin' cool hair MOM!'..his hair hangs out from under his helmet and everyone fusses over him.
He basks. And his father and I fall in love all over with this new and happier child.

After surgery, the doctor and our nurse/friend come to tell us he is fine. That the rupture was severe and there is much infection. He will have at least a one week stay to recover.

That night, at 3:30am, my husband leaves for home and I lay down in the hospital bed next to him. He is lulled into a drugged sleep, he is warm. There is an IV in the crook of his arm. His belly and beyond is covered with iodine and he smells sick to me.

(I should probably mention that at this time, I notice that not only have I not showered since Thanksgiving. I also am not wearing a bra. While this is not a big deal, I have failed to notice either of those things until the whole ordeal was over. What the doctors must have thought of me, I can only wonder. And shudder.)

The next week, my husband and I take turns staying 24/7 with our son. Thankfully, my in laws were more than willing to take over care of my other three children, as we basically forgot they existed. Our daughter even had her birthday during this time and we were not a part of the festivities, so my sister in law provided all the love and laughter and care she needed during this time
He couldn't sit up without pain. He absolutely froze in fear if he felt a cough coming. He had to learn to walk again, and would push his IV pole down the hall, dragging his right leg and foot along, as those muscles just wouldn't engage. He cried in fear that he would never be able to 'run the sideline' again with his speed. He blew through two IV's in three days. His hands were black and blue with bruises from the IV. His arms were bruised from the IV and tape.
On the second day, as he labored out of bed, slowly, so so slowly to the bathroom on his own. I sat outside the door (he is big on privacy) and all of a sudden he bellows "MOM! MOTHER! WHERE ARE MY UNDERPANTS?!"
The sudden understanding that his friend's mother had to take off his underwear set in. "Mom. We will not ever talk about this again, OK. Tell Becky, OK?"
(Not only have I not mentioned it again, but friend's mom/nurse Becky and I decided that perhaps telling him she had to run a catheter is also not a fact he needs to know about!)

He returned home after a week, then spent the next week at home resting, and the following week he returned to school half days.
He lost 9 lbs total, and now, after two months, has still not gotten it all back.

But there is laughter, and he is tackling his brothers and sisters and riding snowmobiles and going to wrestling tournaments.

He is eating mounds of food and had his birthday party at a hockey game.

He is fine.

But the smell of his hair still lingers on me. The feeling of helplessness and fear hasn't left.
I sat and thought of all the time we have invested in this kid. Of the countless hours of speech therapy. Of the hours his father threw balls to him to get him confident. Teaching him how to swim, how to water ski. I think of his father telling him to 'drop a shoulder' when he goes in for a tackle.
I wonder will his whole life be a struggle? Will he always have to 'drop his shoulder'.

Then I stop and know he'll be fine.

After all, he was all shoulders.