Turning a Corner

Just when you think that you have kicked adversity in the ass and taken charge, fate seems to knock you back down a peg or two...ugh! Last week, Marc returned to school in the evenings / weekends. It was a week that I had been dreading since I found out that Zach needed to have his surgery. My afterschool routine with four kids is normally crazy when Marc is not around. Add in one with two thigh-high casts and the time consuming and physical demands that accompany him...well, let's say that I wasn't quite sure how I would pull it off. Nevertheless, with some assistance from my three other helpers, a little muscle power, and a lot of determination we got the job done! Zach took his first car ride to get Abby from drama club and I was able to pick Hailey up at the bus stop on bad weather days (which is not as easy as one may think...a mini van is awfully high when you have to hoist an eight year old in heavy casts into it). I was able (with a little help from Abby) to get him up to the second floor for bed and he was seeming more and more content. By Sunday, I was feeling like I could totally do this in Marc's absence, which was a nice sigh of relief!



And then came Monday...

The casts come off and the boots went on. Zach now has exposed incisions on the back of his knees and the boots force his feet to be positioned completely flat footed (the casts had a slight tip-toe incline to them). So now, he has pressure on his heels and the backs of his legs, aggravated by the ability to suddenly bend his knees and I have to keep my "anything sticky must be picked at" kid away from his stitches. Also, keep in mind that he has not walked on flat feet since he was a year old, so he hasn't a clue how to do it. When he came home from the doctor's yesterday, he cried in pain each time we tried to stand him upright. We felt so badly for him that Marc carried him everywhere he needed to go...and I wondered how the hell I was going to pull off my Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday Marc-free days. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well last night.

Well, today is a new day. Zach went to school and I asked that his SPED team take it easy on him as he adjusts to his new boots. Things seemed to go well and he was smiling when he came off the bus this afternoon. Since it is a school night for Marc, I only saw him for about five minutes when he came home to switch cars and change his clothes, so I'm on my own. Getting him in the house was more difficult than Friday, but we managed. It is amazing what can be accomplished when you have no other choice than to suck it up and hit things head on. We'll see if I am feeling as positive after I tackle getting him upstairs and ready for bed (it's not easy to get his pj pants over those boots...we can't remove the boots at all for another 2 weeks at least!)

And then there is Jacob...

I booked my hotel room for he and I to stay in near the hospital the night before the surgery. It's starting to feel real, although I am still trying to push it all aside in order to keep my sanity in the next two weeks. I'm trying to plan as best I can for that next hurdle, but there is a huge difference between our best case scenario of a few days in the hospital, week out of school, and a headache, and our worst case scenario of meningitis-like symptoms and permanent partial or full paralysis. Right now, my brain can't even go near the worst case scenario, so I am just trying to stay busy and plan the little details of things like what groceries I will need to buy the weekend before to last Marc and the kids about two weeks without me. That's about the best way for me to deal with it right now.

Well, it's off to make dinner...