New Year, New You

My children are back to school today. I am alone with my tea and a messy house. We cleaned closets and found many clothes to donate. Not much else was accomplished winter break. John had surgery to remove a cyst from his eyebrow just before Christmas and he proved what a courageous and polite man he is even in the recovery room.

Reflecting on 2011 is a mixed one. There were so many wonderful things my children succeeded in and flourished. John, at almost six feet is amazing with great grades and athletic ability. He is a good friend to many and easy going. Jeremy is less shy and has had friends over and gone alone to their homes. An accomplishment! They have grown into two very kind and generous young men. I am so proud of them.

My husband has shown his dedication is unwavering and that he wears exhaustion well. We have continued on our no credit card trek. I am glad we have taken on paying off our debts together. The medical bills are mounting for me and I fear they may topple us. There is no end to the medical mysteries. I have met many wonderful people who are also doctors. They are working hard to help me. I managed to complicate things by smashing my toe but hoping it will heal properly. I have many resolutions to make this a healthier year and to give back to my family for all they have done for me.

We lost our dog Buzz in August and still miss him. The holidays were much quieter without him underfoot. I have made the mistake of going to pet stores and looking for puppies online. We have agreed to wait a year so that we can travel and adjust to losing a fifteen year old feisty dog that cannot be replaced.

Work has been wonderful this school year. I have loved all the new technology I have learned and even grown to love to teaching kindergarten and first graders whom last year scared me! Their teachers are all eager to help their students and I have enjoyed learning from them. Hopefully, I will be able to finish my ESL classes. I miss learning new things but our lack of credit has put a dent in coursework.

I must get back to my short story collections and novels I have started. I need to go to my writing group who has reached out to me so often. They are inspirational and just lovely. I need to remember I am a writer as well as all those other hats I wear.

Although 2012 has a lot of leftovers from 2011 for me I'd rather leave there, I will be as courageous as my teenager and as fun as my preteen. I will try to be as selfless as my husband and as hopeful as I was last year.

Welcome 2012.

From Outside

Sometimes life makes you an observer, an outsider to your own life. It is interesting the number of things you miss when you are in it, just getting through each day and too busy to really see.

In my latest medical mystery tour I have been physically slowed down, halted even and parked, made to watch all those events I orchestrate taken over or left aside. My children became more responsible and capable of doing more for themselves but still checking in with me, the head in the bed. My husband became everything, housekeeper, chef, chauffeur, counselor, friend and cheerleader. I wonder how much harder it is to be the one not in the maylay of tests and pain and meds. I am a better patient than caretaker, he is a better caretaker than patient.

My coworkers assured me my absence was absorbed by them making me feel unnecessary. I worked hard to be back and in it again no matter how slowly I moved, how many meds calmed my firing nerves or cramping muscles. I chewed my cheek through the pain and was grateful for my students who made me necessary and never questioned my speed.

The more specialists I've seen the more side effects and mysteries are revealed. Sometimes I think I need a coordinator to make all their ideas equal one syndrome. A specialist is special to their one area but I think they forget they are all working on me. So I add to the list of questions, research them myself and forge ahead. I try not to make any diagnosis more me than me, otherwise being the head in the bed is too comfortable and I am afraid I will no longer want to hear and learn more and try to get better.

I notice people more who move slowly in crowds, who hold their breath as they sit and chew their cheek through each step. I hold more doors and ask more people if they need help. They more often ask me.

Thankfully I watch less and control more today than yesterday. I have more to monitor and watch and test but I am out of bed. I still see those who love me most take care of me best and have learned those who stay away are probably best left there, away.

And I am grateful to be back in it with the help I never noticed I had before.

Hike!

It is like waiting on the other side of a busy street for the boys to cross, to come to me. Looking left and right, frantically waiting for them to negotiate the speed and distance of oncoming traffic, to run, walk or wait. I am straining to see them through the crowd, never really watching the game itself only searching for their jersey numbers. I often yell out and wring my hands. I jump up and shout before I know I have left my chair.

"Hit someone!" the mother next to me shouts. These are words I will not utter at these grueling tackle football games.

"C'mon boys get them! Knock someone down!" another direction from parents near me.

I would shout, "Wait, wait, wait! Do you know long I labored with him? Do you know how big he was?" Or more importantly, "Time out! Spare his brain. He is so smart and sweet and kind."

But I don't. I yell, "Ooh! Uh! Ok, ok, ok," more for me than them.

I watch the bottom of each pile to see if it is one of my sons. If a coach runs down field to help an injured player I pray until I see them both stand.

I don't love this game. I love that they feel a part of a team: an important piece to something bigger than them. There is an appreciation for the mentoring there for one who is a "young heavy" and otherwise quiet and shy. The teenager who was once the young heavy is now the leader and rolemodel for those on his team. He carries himself differently when wearing his jersey. There is an acceptance that this is just another testerone laden activity I will never completely understand.

When this time of practice, games, laundry and worry over every ache and bruise is over, I know there will be an emptiness each fall. A place that is not filled by this football family of players and parents who have embraced my children in a way I was not prepared for. The name on the back of their jerseys represent what they do on the field and off. They have an audience of adults and peers that expect a lot and that has made me proud.

But cannot keep me in my seat. Or my hands still.

Just Buzz

Jack. Russell. Terrier. Notorious. Known for their tenacity and intelligence. A breed chosen by my husband for their size, looks and charm. I researched this pup as I do most things that require a decision. I read many things that just did not fit our lifestyle. I also wanted a dog big and intimidating. A boxer. A great dane. We lived in a condo. We both worked full time but opposite shifts.

Our Buzz was on a farm in Dixon literally standing on his litter mates. The mostly white alpha male. He had a broken coat like PBSs Wishbone and Frasier's Eddy. My husband chose his brother, much smaller, smooth coated brown and white. They were all equally adorable and spunky but this brother was aloof, as interested in the paper plate blowing in the wind as these new legs walking toward him. I wanted Buzz. I wanted the naughty puff of fur with the brown and black eye that ran around the others yipping and nipping them into puppy tag. He followed us on his little puppy legs and cocked his head to yip at us daring us to play too.

My husband lifted him over his head and asked if he wanted to go home with us. Buzz tried to bite his nose!

We returned two weeks later to bring him home.

At our condo he ran, yipped and nipped at us. He treated us like litter mates and lived up to all the warnings I'd read. We took him to puppy school, a special trainer and had him fixed. We crate trained him, walked him and rewarded him with biscuits. We had two boys to play with him and they all grew up together. Our house gave him a yard and a neighborhood to explore.

Buzz stayed spunky and naughty really until he turned fourteen last year. Then he became slower, more quiet and sleepy.

Although he could not see or hear he still followed me. Looked for me to get a biscuit. Slept on my legs, nosed my hands insisting I pet him. Waited for me to lift him onto his chair.

He watched me with those brown eyes even while we gave the go ahead to put him to sleep. No longer able to stand and walk on his own. His little body suddenly deceived him and was shutting down. The things he could not do were longer than those he could and he had lost his Buzzyness.

And we lost Buzz.

Now I am the one still looking for him. In the dark, in my bed, in the house suddenly too quiet and large.

Strike!

“You need a cold pack on your lips. You hurt yourself. It will make it feel better, I promise.”

“That won’t feel me better!"

“You can put this cold pack on your face or you can eat a Popsicle.”

“That is not the only choices!” Jeremy screams dropping to the floor in his customary tantrum.

“Ooh, we have a lot of Popsicles,” I purr. “Look, Mommy and Johnny are eating some,” I say shoving a red Popsicle into my older son’s mouth. John eyes me wearily, as if being forced to eat a Popsicle is a chore.

Jeremy waddles over disoriented from the tremendous whack to the head with a huge purple and bloodied upper lip. John and I chomp on our Popsicles trying not to look alarmed.

“I wanna ye-yo un,” he says reaching dangerously overhead into the freezer.

“Ok, ok back off there head injury. I’ll see if we have any yellow.”

His speech is slurred by his growing upper lip. There are no yellow, only red and purple.

“Jeremy, look here is a purple or a red one. Johnny has red, right John. Mmmm…” John peers from the kitchen chair with his eight year old enough look.

Well, at least it will help camouflage the bruise.

I sit him down on the chair to look at his lip and see if it
is bleeding where his teeth must have penetrated. There is a vertical bruise where the bat connected perfectly on his upper lip and tip of his nose. I wonder how many more near hits I’ll be granted before we end up in the emergency room for stitches.

At birth Jeremy had arrived loud and fearless. On an almost daily basis he has continued to be lucky. At only three he has done some crazy things that I can only hope are meant to toughen my resolve and strengthen me so that I am prepared for his teenage years.

He has run into closed glass doors, hit his head on the corners of everything from car doors to tables, run face first into walls rushing to get somewhere because he so rarely walks. He has jumped or fallen from most area playground equipment and chairs of restaurants. He has matching scars at the corner of each eye that everyone insists gives his face character, but I only see as permanent damage, notes taken on my inability to control this little man.

This latest addition to the head injury Hall of Fame was by far the most unexpected. Taking practice swings in our backyard behind me with his plastic Little Slugger he wound up repeatedly and pretended to hit homeruns. I reminded him again not to stand so close to me or he would get hit with my bat. With each reminder he would step back next to the plastic Fisher Price playhouse and wind up again. Impatiently waiting his turn.

A loud bang and howling scream made me drop my bat and sent John running. Jeremy had his mouth covered with his hands, blood seeping through his parted fingers. He was screaming with a pitch I’d never heard.

“It’s OK, OK, OK, OK,” I held him and patted his back trying to figure out how he had hurt himself so badly right behind us. But that was how it went. He was right behind me, next to me, within reach and I could never catch, stop, block or hold him enough to prevent injury.

John was Jeremy’s older brother and often narrator to his deeds. John had seen Jeremy raise the bat over his head and bring it down on the roof of the playhouse. It had hit so hard that it bounced straight back into his face. John suggested he will one day be an MIP, Most Injured Player.

With blood, snot, and red Popsicle now dripping onto his once white tee shirt and his upper lip so swollen it looked like a balloon sitting on a Popsicle stick, Jeremy asked, “Ca I vat now?”

John and I made eye contact and slowly shook our heads,“No.”

Buzzy-ness

So I called the vet. Admitted something is wrong or worse or over.

He fell down the stairs; barked into the air to come back into the house that was yards away and behind him; ran into the wall so hard he sneezed for several minutes. At night he panted and paced in circles through the bedroom, the master bathroom and back through the bedroom for hours. He has accidents constantly instead of sometimes.

But...

He woo hoos when I take out his leash. His whole body can still welcome me even if I have been in the same room and he just noticed me. I can still recognize pieces of him but not very often and he can rarely enjoy those moments.

When I bring him to the vet I wonder what he will think? I wonder what I will be able to admit? I wonder if he will come home?

Blankie

I wish blankie was here.

We had two.
Each boy loved one, held it until it was lint then dust, then sweet memories.
Cherished it like another life.
Blankie held secrets, magical in its ability to solve all woes, quiet and still sobs. Blankie with its sweet musty smell like summer and the pure bliss of satisfied toddler sighs.
The easy dreaming and jubilant grins it brought so easily to my boys makes me ache for that time again when tragedy was salved with fabric.
What is a teen blankie? What is it that can be held and cherished?
A note from a girl?
Another's hand?
What can heal the fissure of failure when strike outs become common place?
What can return the joy when friends disappoint and girlfriends evaporate?

Blankie I miss your magic.