Forty-six Wishes

1. For Will to continue maximizing his potential.

2. To embrace the true essence of myself.

3. To find a personal physical goal, train and achieve it. Then celebrate it!

4. Contentment

5. To only have one mortgage.

6. Health for my family and loved ones.

7. Happiness for my family and loved ones.

8. To spend some quality time with those I love.

9. Progress in my many writing projects.

10. To get the new house fully unpacked and decorated.

11. A really relaxing, rejuvenating vacation.

12. A decent night’s sleep.

13. Boston Celtics: NBA Champs

14. The ability to raise one sardonic eyebrow.

15. Tampa Bay Rays: World Series Champs.

16. To hear the words “Jon Hamm, Party of Two” and be one of the two

17. A continued strengthening of my self-esteem.

18. The sudden appearance of an organizational gene in me. Please?

19. To see my "chicas" this year. Our trip to NYC was too long ago and far away

20. To see snow this year. Preferably falling on the mean streets of Manhattan.

21. To be less guarded.

22. To get out of the house more.

23. To hear live music more frequently.

24. To tell the ones I love that I love them with greater frequency

25. To embrace my new roles at church and serve with faith, grace and humbleness.

26. To control and manage my stress in a constructive manner.

27. A more tolerant, accepting, respectful, gentler society.

28. To have a week when my nails don’t look like a gorilla is my manicurist.

29. More than one decent night’s sleep in a row.

30. Longer legs and less wide feet (Hey, these are my wishes. They don’t have to be practical. Or feasible.)

31. To be more vulnerable.

32. To keep up with my continuing education in cooking or writing or something.

33. For more good hair days than bad hair days.

34. To be a good friend.

35. To find some dependable babysitters. (see Wish #22)

36. To have the strength to know when a relationship has run its course and to know that I did all I could to try and save it. Sometimes these things simply happen.

37. To read more.

38. To make progress organizing my myriad scrapbooking/genealogy projects.

39. To actually grow a plant successfully. Outside. (my aerogarden does not count.) Without killing it.

40. To be the best choir urchin director I can be.

41. To learn one new skill.

42. To hear the words “Copeland (as in Stewart), Party of Two” and be one of the two.

43. To make a difference for the good in my world.

44. To FINALLY do that karaoke thing.

45. To be kinder to myself. If I heard the things I say to myself said to someone else, I’d be shocked and appalled. This needs to stop.

46. To have the chance to make 47 wishes the same time next year.

Personal hell

Hier ist die Stelle wo ich sterblich bin.
This is the spot where I am mortal.
~ Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

Been a long week. One I am happy to see pass into the annals of time.

I've been haunted this week -- by images, by lack of control, by elements outside my control, by loneliness and old demons and renewed fears. Seriously -- if I could, I'd throw a Get the Hell Out of Here party for this week.

Family issues and broken air conditioners aside (Goodness knows, I hate to be hot when I don't have to be. My idea of camping is no room service. I own my diva-ish-ness proudly.) it's Will and his health that have consumed me. The seizure and breathing issues of last weekend. Not an image that erases quickly in the slideshow of my mind. He is feeling better -- the antibiotic seems to have done the trick and my sweet, singing, funny boy has re-emerged. We just need to get to Friday and his ear tube surgery without any more nonsense.

You'd think that would be enough to assuage my nerves. But what was probably intended as an empathetic comment from someone at Will's school hasn't let me rest. When I shared the details of his medical emergency, she commented that she understood, as she lost a student once in a similar situation.

Yeah.

We've had brushes with Will's mortality before. When he was about two weeks old, constant seizure activity and other issues led to us having a "we may be out of options" conversation with his NICU doctors. Can't tell you how horrible that was. Word still fail me. And yes, with a kiddo that sports such health issues as Will does, that mortality thing always plays in the back of my mind, distantly and vaguely.

But now, with the seizure and breathing issues, coupled with that offhand comment -- thought of his mortality have consumed me. My dreams. My subconscious. My waking hours.

I know Will thinks I'm nuts, going and checking on him constantly when he's resting or sleeping. "Weave me awone. Cwose the door. Bye bye." has been said more than once when he's been chilling on his bed, listening to music or drifting off to sleep. Yes, Mama's a pest. But a well-meaning one.

I bear my responsibility as Will's mama heavily, more so because I am chief cook, bottle washer, chauffeur and care giver during the week when the Mister is on the road for work. This can wreck havoc on a control-freak such as myself. My head tells me if I can just keep an eye on Will at all times, I can prevent and pre-empt any issues.

But I'm driving myself crazy in the process. Making myself sick. Sucking the joie de vivre out of my soul.

I've isolated myself this week -- pulled away from friends and family. Who wants to be around someone like me in the throes of a situation like this? I'm weird -- ok, quirky -- enough as it is without this nonsense. People don't need to deal with anything extra when they have their own issues afoot.

I know I have so many things to be thankful for -- and I truly am. Our household is employed, we have a wonderful child and a roof over our heads. But right now, I'm mired in the emotional quicksand of fear and helplessness and loneliness. Scary horrid place to be -- just me and my whack-a-doo thoughts and emotions.

Gotta get out. Can't do this anymore. Not right now.

I must be content with the knowledge that I take care of Will the very very best way I can. And that his life -- and mine -- are in God's hands, as I believe it. I just need to go with that and rest in it.

So hello new week. New perspective. New outlook.

How's that for trying to think positively?

It's a start.

Blue

It’s an interesting shade of blue. Tinted, really. Kind of reminds of me of the blue hair old ladies often sport when following ill-advised coiffure advice, now that I think about it.

But it’s a shade of blue that haunts me.

Will’s lips were this shade of blue when we found him during the wee small hours of the morning in the throes of a seizure, which was compounded by respiratory distress.

Terrifying. A sight I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy nor on any parent.

Time blurs for me as I try to recall what happened. A 9-1-1 call. Firemen – one of whom has come to tend to Will before in such situations. I refer to him as our personal firefighter – he is impossibly kind and gentle with both parent and child and nobody else better claim him because he’s ours. Oxygen tanks and masks. IVs inserted into little boy arms. Paramedics arriving. Bodily fluids afoot. Torn paper and wrappers and caps strewn.

This is what a medical emergency looks like.

By the time Will was carried out to the ambulance in the tattooed arms of a paramedic, the Mister walking behind as the official oxygen tank carrier, I wasn’t sure what end was up. Our firefighter pulled me aside and gave me some words of encouragement – Will’s breathing was recovering and it sounded to him like an upper respiratory issue. Congestion that might have complicated the seizure.

Congestion that turned my world a horrifying shade of blue.

When I arrived at the hospital, armed with clothes, meds (since it’s a whole lot faster to bring your own anti-convulsants rather than wait for the hospital pharmacy) and other things needed for a day of emergency room hurry-up-and-wait, I found an understandably cranky Will being poked and prodded by the attending emergency room doc and the guys who tended to him at home waiting to see what she thought, along with the Mister, fresh from his ride in the ambulance, giving vital information to all who requested it. There was peace in that chaos, for I knew that Will was in good hands. And this latest problem was on its way to resolution.

After visits from hospital personnel both new and familiar, some tests and a cup of bad hospital coffee, Will was deemed ok to go home. That damned ear infection is still lingering, most likely the primary complicator in Will’s already complicated heath craziness. His ear tube surgery is two weeks away – and it cannot get here fast enough. We are armed with my favorite antibiotic (It doesn’t have to be refrigerated! Hooray!) and a slight increase in the dosage of one of his anti-convulsants and the comfort of good test results. Young William seems to have bounced back with the energy and zip that only an eight (almost nine!) year old has. For that, I am immensely humbled and grateful. The Mister and I are still pulling ourselves back together, as the residue of our personal post-traumatic stress lingers longer in our adult minds and emotions. We continue to watch him like the proverbial hawk, noting anything that could be a precursor or signal of something going awry. What is normal eight-year-old behavior and what is the sign of another crisis brewing -- questions we ask constantly as we test the limits of our parental instinct.

As I collect the laundry of the day and try to resume normalcy, I notice a large blood stain on Will’s sheets, most likely a by-product of the lightning fast IV insertion. Red. Bright red. A partner with the blue of distress. New colors for my emotional stains. And while I’m haunted by these images, I really wouldn’t be any kind of parent if things stayed clean and pristine on my soul. And so it goes...