"Like Sands Through The Hour Glass......"

 From the moment my mom got sick, I have had this "expect the worst" negativity about me. It's not on purpose. I have always been a worrier, who thought up horrible scenarios in an attempt to avoid them. "If I expect the worst, I can be prepared for it" was kind of my mentality. My mom has always told me that I was going to worry my life away. When she was diagnosed, I got MUCH worse. I have had alot of hardships lately. Through it all I have felt the anger building inside of me. I just COULD NOT understand why this was all piling up on us at one time. Nori's reaction, my grandfather, the numerous bad news bombs regarding mom, WHEN WILL IT END?

I awoke this morning, having had my best night's sleep in a LONG time. My eyes opened as my ears caught  the sound of Nori, (my one yr old) talking to herself down the hall in her bedroom. It is typically always Nori that wakes me up. The sound of her crying, chanting "MAMA! MAMA!", or the carrying voice of an interesting conversation with herself usually lures me from my dreams each morning. I quietly rolled out of bed, careful to not wake Neva. (Yes, Neva runs to our room around 1:00AM each morning and I let her sleep with us. Don't judge me. We are working on it. I did better with Nori. You always learn your lesson with the second one.) I sleepily walked down the hall and cut the corner into Nori's room. I first saw the big cute-as-can-be smile on her face, then I saw her eye swolen shut. "Oh my goodness, baby! What happened?!?" I asked, as if she was about to give me a detailed account of the incident. I jerked her from her crib and covered her in kisses. By this time, I could hear Neva waking up. I walked in to my bedroom, Nori in tow and sat down next to Neva. I began examining Nori's body. There was some sort of  "mark" under her eye and on her eye lid. They kind of looked like ant bites. Since we spend a lot of time outdoors, its not out of the ordinary to have these marks. I gave her a dose of benedryl, got the kids ready and we headed off to pick up their Gammy. Time to begin Chemo cycle #3.

When we got to mom's house, I noticed that she was not any better than yesterday. She is still very sick. It hurt ME to hear her horrible cough and she looked so weak. She had managed to cook the girls a small breakfast to keep us from stopping somewhere. I waited while the they ate and mom got dressed. Meanwhile, I noticed that Nori's condition seemed to be deteriorating. I figured the benedryl would be kicking in but her eye actually looked WORSE! Even though she acted like she felt fine, Mom advised me to take her to the Dr. to be on the safe side. We have not had good experiences with allergic reactions in the past, so I agreed. After we dropped her off at chemo, we headed 2 buildings down to the pediatric clinic. Ronnie (my brother who is a teacher and coach) is done with school, so when football practice ended he went to pick mom up. This worked out good, because I could put my focus on Nori. While we waited for the Dr., Nori broke out in an awful rash and started sporadically gagging as if her throat was bothering her. I also noticed that her other eye was getting puffy. I feared that we would have a repeat of her last reaction-which remains THE MOST TERRIFYING 2 DAYS OF MY LIFE. She was playing with her sister as if she felt fine, so this comforted me. The Dr. looked at her symptoms, looked at her blood, gave her more benedryl, a steroid shot, and referred her to an allergy specialist, which we will see in a couple weeks. We have a follow-up tomorrow. I am supposed to take her to the ER in the unfortunate situation of her condition worsening.

I can feel my demeanor changing. I love this new me. I hope it's not temporary. If this day had happened 2 months ago, even 2 weeks ago, I would be furious with everyone and everything. What a day! I had my mom taking chemo. My baby was 2 doors down with, yet another, scary reaction. Instead of asking "why me?" or thinking "I can't take much more", I felt confident. I CAN do this. Don't get me wrong, I am scared. Who wouldn't be? But I won't let my fears take over. I won't let anger overcome me. I really feel like I can take whatever life throws at me, learn from it, and move on. I don't want to worry about the "what if's" anymore. If I have learned anything, it is that you can't worry yourself into being prepared for every situation. You will waste precious time. You can't live in tomorrow's possible tragedies. You will lose today. Life is full of ups and downs and twists and turns. You have to be able to take the good with the bad. I am definitely on a bumpy road right now and I am sure I will find myself confused at times. But that is then, and this is now.

"WHEN WILL IT END?", I don't want to know anymore. I don't want "it" to end. "It" is life. Life, though unpredictable, is wonderful. I want to live mine to the fullest.