Friday Gratitude

I’d like to begin by thanking each of you who reached out either in the comments, via email, or text offering support after yesterday’s blog. I truly appreciate it you.

Today ends with more emotions – anger, sadness, confusion, and helplessness. I truly cannot wait for my appointment this week. Something has got to change. It is affecting me and those around me.

Enough of that. I want to share one of the highlights of my day.

Poke

Ella and I went to the doctor so she could get her flu shot. I needed to go to the lab in the same building to get my blood drawn. Before we walked in, Ella asked if she was going to “get a poke.” I told her, yes, but “it’s only a little poke.” She began to tear up and I told her that I’d be there with her.

I told her that I had to get a “poke” too and that she could help by being with me when I got mine. As we sat in the waiting room, she observed and announced everything!

“That guy must have gotten his poke, daddy.”

“Look a that little baby, daddy. She’s wearing small shoes.”

“Daddy, that lady is wearing pink lipstick.”

There was a guy who was just sitting with his eyes closed across from us. Ella announced, “Daddy. That guy must be tired because he is sleeping right here in front of everyone!” He smiled and opened his eyes. “Oh, he’s awake now,” she said.

“That lady has two babies!”

“Did you see that girl’s Paw Patrol shoes!?”

It was nonstop. She brought many smiles to the folks in the waiting room. When they finally called me back to the lab, they had me sit in the chair. She was next to me. The tech but that rubber thing on my arm and began to feel for a vein. She had no luck on one arm, so she tried the other. She then asked me, “Do they usually have a hard time finding a vein on you?” I told her that usually, it is no problem.

She kept feeling around and then asked her other tech, “Would you use a smaller needle on this vein?” The other tech came over and began to feel around. She had me drop my arm down and a vein popped right out. I guess that was the key. Anyway, they apologized for taking so long. They said, good thing you are not afraid of needles, or the wait would have made it worse.

Ella piped up right away. She looked me right in the eye and said, “Don’t worry, daddy. It’s just a little poke!” This brought smiles and laughter to all the ladies in the lab. She was showered with more stickers and a sucker.

Thank you, Ella, for being a ray of sunshine on a very hard day.

Holiday Decor

I mentioned yesterday that my coworker gave us a tree for the side porch. It went up surprisingly easy today after I got home from the doctor.

Sam had me put it in the corner on the side porch. I can’t wait to see what it looks like when I get home tonight.

I blogged about the arch that Sam bought for the front yard this week. She left the lights on and I was really impressed at how beautiful it looks at night. Those LED lights are bright. She did a video chat last night and I got to see it on her phone, but seeing it in person was so much better.

Engage!

I’m listening to a new audiobook in the car.

I’ve always liked Patrick Stewart. He is such a great actor. His one man show of A Christmas Carol is something that I listen to every holiday season. He reads it, and even though he has aged a bit, his voice is still strong and he is so expressive with his reading. I’m only about 10 chapters in, but it is very good.

With all that is on my mind, it helps to get lost in a good book on my drive to and from work.

Family Christmas photos tomorrow.

Close, But No Breakthrough … Yet

I wrote a fun blog already today, so now I need to get this down in writing before I lose it.

In therapy the past few weeks I’ve been working through some pretty deep stuff. Death has been at the forefront of my mind lately, probably due to the many deaths that I have seen in the Facebook feed over the past couple years. Whether those deaths were caused by Covid, cancer, heart attack or whatever, I have certainly felt it hit close to home. Just this week, a friend lost her fiancé and another school friend lost his mother.

This week, we dove into the subject of death itself and people in my life who I have lost. We looked at the loss of my grandparents and the loss of my mother specifically. My therapist asked about the first death I every experienced (my grandpa when I was 11). She asked what I felt when that happened. I wasn’t sure. So we moved ahead to my mom (when I was 36). What was I feeling then?

How was it so hard to come up with what I was feeling? Am I blocking feelings?

I came up with: sad, confusion, fear (scared), helplessness, regret, and guilt. I am guessing that there are many more feelings associated with death, but those are what I pulled out of the top of my head.

So I have a homework assignment. I am to look at each of those words and see how they play into things. How did the deaths affect others in my house?

Basically, it seems that grief is a theme in many of our sessions and we are going to examine it further. We’re going to try to pinpoint what event has brought me to where I am today. She told me that there is a phrase that says, “When your hysterical – it’s historical.” There is usually something “back there” that can lead to the way you react and behave.

Why can’t I accept and get past things? What may be hanging around in my brain? What am I protecting myself from?

I don’t know any of the answers.

After therapy my wife asked how it went. I told her I was still trying to process it. I knew we really struck on something, but I didn’t know what. I also expressed how it scared me. Have you ever been afraid to proceed, because you are just not sure what you might find out? That’s where I am at.

Hopefully, we are working toward some sort of resolution and not something that will mess up my head even more!

I Just Want To Make It All Better

As a parent, you hate to see your child sick. You feel helpless. All you want to do is take away the hurt. You want to make them feel better. You know that they are miserable and you would gladly bear their pain and suffering to allow them to get well.

The past few weeks have been hard on my little girl. Two weeks ago, she had yet another ear infection. After a full run of antibiotics, she began to show signs of being sick again. She spent a lot of time cuddling and laying next to me on the couch.

She had a slight fever yesterday and last night she was up almost all night inconsolable. I was at work, and Sam tried everything to get her to calm down. She finally calmed down early this morning and was able to sleep a little bit. She was asleep when I got home from work and Sam called her doctor to see if she could get her in.

The doctor said that her ear infection was actually worse. She was surprised that the week’s worth of the antibiotic didn’t touch it. She ran a bunch of tests to make sure it was not something else (Covid, RSV, Flu, etc) and they all came back negative. The ears have a lot of inflammation and so she has some ear drops to take as well as another antibiotic. We are hoping that this does the trick. If not, we could be looking at a hospital stay.

When she was born, she did not pass her hearing test in one ear. After retesting, she passed. However, at that time, they told us that she’d probably be prone to ear infections in that ear, and may even need tubes at some point. I believe we may be at that point. We’ve scheduled an appointment with an ENT and hope to have more answers after that.

In the meantime, we continue to pray that she feels better. Can I ask that you do the same? Thank you in advance.

I hope you feel better soon, my princess. I love you as big as the world!

XOXO

Daddy.