What it looks like at my house

Outside, 5 new inches of snow, made crusty by freezing rain.

Inside, we are ready for this morning's breathing program and meds.

Nebulizers, inhalers, vaporizers, antibiotics, steroids and cough medicines, oh my. The stuff in the baggie on the right is the never mind/didn't work stuff, which combined cost slightly more than the orange inhaler, which costs - after insurance - $230 per tube, which is the winner in the You Have Got to Be Kidding Me category. A close second is antibiotic 2 of 3, which rang in at $170 dollars because there is no generic. All told, you're looking at just under $1000 in prescription medicines from the last 12 days, who knows what the doctors bills will be. But get this - we have Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance, which we pay for, because we are self employed and self insured small business owners who are supposed to save the depressed economy. Hah. I would like to pass a job killing bill to fire some ignorant politicians if I were able.

But here's the thing. The money part is irrelevant in the big picture. She is not better. At all. No change, two weeks later. Today we go to the hospital lab to get swabbed for whooping cough because it's going around. Even immunized kids are getting it. But I'm thinking this is not whooping cough. It doesn't fit. But nothing else fits either and what do I know besides what I read online. Three doctors and a pulmonary specialist have no other ideas to stop the non-stop coughing - and by non-stop I mean every thirty seconds or less, all day and whenever she stirs at night. Poor thing is sore and hoarse and cranky. I'm helpless and clueless. I just try to keep little girl from going crazy from both the coughing and the boredom and hope time heals whatever the hell this is.

That's the news from here. Nothing good except that things could be worse and thank goodness they aren't. I read online about people breaking ribs from coughing, coughing like this for months, a hundred days. My girl, who is not so little any more has had episodes like this for the past 5 years, as her lungs take great offense to viral invaders, but she's always gotten better within days of treatment. Now we are into weeks and likely immuno -suppressed from the steroids and I am living in high alert mode, scared she's missed so much school and equally terrified to throw her back into the germ pool. I want to bubble wrap her and keep her safe, once I get her well.

And so it goes this winter at my house. Stay well out there. And thanks for listening to me whine.

Again.

What it sounds like at my house

Cough cough. Cough cough. Cough cough cough.

For 8 straight days and most of the nights.

My 100 pound, 13 year old daughter had a sore throat last week.

Two days later she started coughing. Non stop. Until she gags and retches.

We've had xrays, doctor visits, inhalers, steroids, two antibiotics, every cough syrup they make, with and without codeine, steam baths, controlled breathing, vaporizers, back rubs, you name it, nothing works. Nothing.

Eight days later she is still coughing non stop. A week of school missed, with midterms looming. No appetite, no energy, little rest, sore muscles, no voice.

It is the hardest thing I do as a mother, to try and stay calm, to reassure myself that there is nothing else that we can do but wait, and to be vigilant that she is getting enough oxygen and has no fever. But I am at DefCon 4, Orange Alert, and I have listened to her cough so long I can barely stand it.

Which makes me feel awful, because I can't imagine what she feels like.

Official diagnosis, pnuemonia, organism unspecified, acute bronchitis and cough.

We've been here many times before, but this is the worst bout yet. I'm trying to see through this and visualize her breathing easy, and sleeping. She keeps saying I'm sorry, Mommy, and that makes me feel awful too.

I give it two more days then I'm planning on freaking out. I'm hoping the new antibiotic can keep me from going there.

I don't know how moms with chronic, very ill children do it, I just don't. I never knew how weak and worthless and helpless I really was until I became a mom. I guess everyone just does what they have to, even if that means just leaving the room for a minute so you don't have to hear your child suffer, so you can come back in and offer what feeble comfort there is to give.

So far, I'm not liking this year at all. And I wasn't that fond of last year.

So that's what it sounds like at my house. Cough cough. Cough cough cough.

Cough, cough. Cough cough. Cough cough cough cough cough .... aaaargh.

The NeverEnding Story

No pretty pictures today, just whining.

I am so very tired. I slept fitfully, hot flashing, heart racing and dreaming a sick apocalyptic dream involving grabbing what I could from the house before it got looted and burned to the ground by bad guys with flamethrowers. To add to the excitement, the house is in flames while I try to get my kids to understand they need to grab clothes, food and blankets and run. Interestingly, the non-essential I grab is my collection of tiny things and I worry about them breaking. I'm surprised I didn't grab books and photos.

Not exactly restful. I awake to the cat walking on my hair to get to my bedside table and drink from my water glass. Pissed off before I get out of bed. And then...

Fifteen year old almost misses the 6:25 am bus because he can't find his backpack. Mom, Dad and clueless child scour the house, trying to locate the backpack, while child acts indignant like someone hid it from him, claiming he left it on the kitchen counter. It is under his sister's backpack on the floor of the den where he threw it when he got home. Did he look there? Yes. Did he look under anything? No. Dad saves the day, in the nick of time. And then...

Thirteen year old almost misses the 7:30 bus because she can't find the shoes and jacket she wore yesterday. Did I wear them? Did I hide them? Do I have a clue where she left them this time??? NO. Does she get indignant and snitty with me because she is running late and needs to blame someone? YES. Do I get mad back at her? You betcha. Is this the way I imagined parenthood? NOPE.

It's mornings like this where my 50 year old tired achy arthritic sore ass* questions the logic of desperately craving babies in my late 30's. I really am too old and tired for this shit. And I clearly have some adjustments to make with the ADD crowd and my morning attitude. My children are brilliant and clueless, just like their mom.

Things nobody told me about parenting and it's probably a good thing they didn't:

I would almost lose my mind from sleep deprivation and post partum hormone imbalances, and then again in a decade or so from menopause hormone imbalances and sleep deprivation.

I would love and protect them with a fierceness I didn't know I had in me, and live with fear of knowns and unknowns and what ifs with dread I can't hide from.

They grow and change so fast that it feels like being stuck on a merry go round.

Their teenage years and my menopause years are colliding in a perfect storm of crazy, chaotic hormonal madness.

When I talk to them, they hear Charlie Brown's mom. Waah Wha Wha Whaa Waaaah.

I would spend most of my time with them driving them to and from school and sporting events. In fact, most of our quality time happens in a car.

I'm not half the mom I thought I'd be, and they are infinitely more complicated than I could have imagined.

I give up on the battles I thought mattered to fight ones I didn't know existed.

This is the hardest job I have ever done - no breaks, no vacations, no pay, few perks, fuzzy performance appraisals - my contract is almost up and I'm unprepared for the deadline. I wonder how I can ever get them ready to live in the world when I barely know how myself.

My mom wasn't crazy all by herself, we helped make her that way.

All those parenting books I bought - about 50 by now - were mostly bullshit. The only one that helped was Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, and maybe the What to Expect series. All the rest of them, especially the parenting without yelling genres, practically worthless, at least in this family, where no one is neurotypical or easy going. We're a bunch of introverted, intense, twitchy, inflexible, tag hating, food picky, ADD, OCD, technology addicted, organizationally impaired slobs. Welcome to the funhouse.

Of course, I wouldn't know what to change if I could change anything, or where to start. And I'll never regret for a second having these mind boggling children. I just needed a good whine. Done now. Thanks.



* sore ass compliments of tripping and falling into the fire pit and onto the fire grate while taking a picture. This brings the fall tally in the last three years to seven, if I'm remembering them all. I need to be really, really careful about the gravity problem before I break my neck.

Not My Favorite Way to Wake Up

I hate to wake up, as I'm an exhausted insomniac and I really hate to get up because my bed is ridiculously comfy and it's cold out there.

This morning, inexplicably, my cat Noel, who I found living under my porch  5 years ago, at Christmas, decided to pee a huge puddle on my bed. Soaked through this  duvet cover on the picture and into my new, expensive down comforter, the most luxurious item I own, by far.

Of course cat pee rained down on me, the carpet and everywhere in my blurry eyed attempt to clean it up without crying or killing the cat. WTF. She seems fine, her litter box was available and reasonably clean, in fact I'm pretty sure she crapped in the box and then came upstairs to pee on my bed. While I was in it. At least she had the decency to pee on my husband's side. If she had peed on me, I might not forgive her. I still might not. Right now I'd give away to the first taker. I have my limits.

I'm just not sure what the universe or the cat is trying to tell me. I need something nice or normal or non-sucking to happen to me and soon. But first I gotta try and get the pee smell out of my life.

Just pulled up the weather, in between laundry loads. Are you kidding me? I need to hide in bed. Winter weather advisory. Winter storm warning. Sucky, stuck inside kinda day, because I don't drive in this mess unless its crucial. And it isn't.
Hope you live somewhere else.

Today
Periods snow until late afternoon...then snow... chance of rain and sleet late in the afternoon. Snow and sleet accumulation of 1 to 2 inches. Blustery. Highs in the mid 30s. Light and variable winds becoming east 15 to 25 mph with gusts up to 30 mph at times. Chance of precipitation 100 percent.
Tonight
Windy. Widespread light snow and a chance of sleet in the evening...then widespread snow after midnight. Snow and sleet accumulation of 3 to 5 inches. Temperatures nearly steady in the lower 30s. East winds 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 35 mph at times in the evening becoming southeast and decreasing to 10 to 20 mph with gusts up to 35 mph at times after midnight. Chance of precipitation 100 percent.
Wednesday
Windy. Widespread light snow until late afternoon... then a chance of light snow showers late in the afternoon. Areas of blowing snow in the afternoon. Snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches. Total snow accumulation 5 to 9 inches. Turning sharply colder. Highs in the lower 30s. Then temperatures falling into the mid 20s by evening. West winds 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 40 mph at times. Chance of precipitation 90 percent.

Chance of more bullshit in my life 100 percent. Chance of attitude improvement 50 percent. Partly surreal with patches of irony.