Day 95: Trying and Failing to Do All the Things

Duplicated on our CaringBridge site for permanent record here.

February 20, 2021, written by Mama

95 days in the hospital: 63 in PICU, 28 in the Oncology ward, 4 at In-Patient Rehab!

This will be a short update because I feel I am drowning in duties.

There is very little therapy done on the weekends in Rehab (which makes an eager parent feel like she is dead in the water). On Saturday, Thomas has one hour of therapy and on Sunday none. For that Saturday appointment, I recognized our therapist immediately and was trying to place her when she asked if she knew me. We realized that she had been our firstborn son John's occupational therapist a decade ago!

I went home for what will be far and away my longest visit yet: probably 24 hours! I'm feeling increasing pressure to get the house ready for Thomas and there is so much to do. Plus I just miss my other babies so much!

Today I did a zillion tasks that I won't list out plus learned how to make homemade Nutella that Thomas could actually use one tablespoon of on his little half sandwich! One tablespoon has 2.5 g sugar instead of 10 and 4 g carbohydrates instead of 11: success! Everyone loved it.

Thomas had a long-awaited video phone call with his best buddy J.C. They used to play together weekly on Thursdays and now Thomas has not seen him once in ten months (cue mama tears). Chris says it was so adorable to watch two five-year-olds having a conversation. Apparently Thomas talked at length about his two favorite subjects: squids and (Matchbox) cars.

On one hand, the house is running well in my absence. On the other hand, there are so many house projects to be done for Thomas and I just can't even. Sometimes I come home to try to get better sleep only to stay up till 11:00 and then wake up around 4:00 a.m. just trying to stay awake doing All The Things (that's a nursing phrase :).

My email in box is now overflowing with about 100 emails that require my attention and I'm just sorry, everyone. I'm finding I'm failing even to reply to text messages this week.

Over and out. I'm going to go do more things.