Mama Told Me There Would Be Days Like These

Actually, she didn't. She never really told me much of anything except "Righty tighty lefty loosey," but that's another story.

Anyway, I have wanted to work on this blog, have been dying to all week. But with two teens and a Medieval Total War junkie husband in the house, I have to put in a reservation months in advance I guess.

Anyway, anyway. About this horrendous week. Where to begin. Can I start on Saturday night? I guess this is my world so here goes. My husband and I had our first real date since September!!! We went out to dinner at a lovely Bistro downtown and it was really great: the food, the conversation, live jazz playing softly in the background. We really needed this time to ourselves and I think that the timing could't have been better, considering the week to come.
Monday:
Just the day before our perfect date I found a small but worrisome lump in my traitorous breast. I think what I felt most of all was anger at my body. The thing that really most defines me as a woman attacking me and causing my death. Okay, I know, that is very melodramatic. Monday I went to the doctor. she felt it and was very unimpressed, labeled it a cyst, so off to the hospital for a mamogram on Wednesday just to be sure. And I was diagnosed with a sinus infection, thus the neverending sniffles! She perscribed some antibiotic.

Oh great, the appointment is Wednesday and I have my dad at home worried to death, watching the three crazy fellers today. Now I have to dig up another crazy person to watch three little boys on Wednesday, too.Fortunately, my husband helped with the frantic multiple phonecalls to any and all relatives. Good, my retired but still ever-so-busy father-in-law has a few hours free.

There is a bomb threat at my husband's school. We can't mention it to the kids. He is not worried, not too much, anyway.

Tuesday:
Seven million loads of laundry and counting. A big putsy dinner to make. Wiped out and drained with this neverending cold. And dreading the Test. My thirteen-year-old daughter's teacher calls. She was kicked out of class for insubordanance (I wonder where she got that from?). Well, she made a scene in school and must be grounded. Great, and there is a huge party she is going to miss this weekend that she is furious about. My sister calls after dinner and informs me that Grandma is in the hospital. She had fainted last Thursday, had a doc appointment Monday, and was sent to the hospital. The doctors have run many tests but can find nothing wrong. I am devestated. My grandma and I are very close (she practically raised me while my mother spent her life finding herself) and she has been in the hospital two days and NO ONE has told me until now??? Supposedly mother tried to call. Funny, we have caller ID and I find no evidence of a call from her.
Wednesday:
Mamogram, long wait and breast ultrasound. Yep, just a cyst. Come back in 6 months. Oh and you have calcifications, but everyone has those. Might want to consider giving up coffee (NEVER NEVER NEVER gonna happen, I gotta have SOMETHING!!! and my something is coffee, I don't care how lumpy it makes my breasts). Stop by and visit Grandma. She is scared, but acting brave. Her carotid arteries are clogged and she needs surgery, probably Friday. She actually had had a stroke. Mom is too busy to visit today (yeah, sure). We hug and both try not to cry. I leave and retreive my fellers. They are happy to see me, not happy to go. Try to get them to take a nap when we get home. It is kind of late in the afternoon. The Teen Girl gets home from school, stomps and bangs around the house, wakes up the fellers. I get a call. I have to pick up the Teen Boy. Get back in the car for more driving.
Thursday:
Take the fellers to visit Grandma in the hospital. She is off the IV and monitors and thankful for that. She does not need a stress test, good. But she is so scared. The woman has never had a surgery in her life. All the doctors are giving her scarey info: the risk of further stroke or heart attack during surgery, there will be at least two surgeries, she will be in overnight, she will be in for a week...The fellers rund around the room, ransacking the place, search and destroy. Yes, they even colored on the floor. And why do they all want the pink squirt gun (empty of ammo!) when there is a bigger better green one, too? So they fight, and they scream, and Grandma keeps saying how sick the people are here, and J gets mad when I try to take off his sweater, walks around with his arms out screaming, so I say its time to go home (thinking to get him to stop screaming, some threat) and he agrees, "ome, ome!" Packing them back in their sweaters, I am dripping sweat on the marker marks on the floor. All the people I see must be right, they are a lot of work. Did I even talk to Grandma today? I remember nothing except preschoolers jumping on the $10k bed, dripping cookie crumbs and apple juice, yanking the blood pressure cuff out the wall while the four year old yells and makes a mad dash to the bathroom to go poop. Have to take the urine collection cups out of the toilet first! What was I thinking???

My husband does not get blown up today, thank goodness!!! But he is away at conferences and I miss him.

Lessons learned: 1)Never ever bring toddlers/hyper preschoolers to a hospital for any reason unless one of them is leaking blood or some other serious condition that would disable their running around screaming feature. 2) Mom will never change, she will never be the mother I always wanted or the daughter Grandma deserves. 3) I feel like a big jerk for having all this family and stuff going on, for neglecting grandma these last years, and I know I shouldn't and I know she doesn't hold it against me, but time really is so precious and short, as cliche as that may sound. I don't know, I just can't imagine how empty this world will be without her.