It‘s 2:45 am. We‘re trying to wean him off the oxygen, but his levels dropped while he slept and all the machines went off, waking him. He was not happy, to put it mildly.
I could hear the other babies on our floor respond to his howls, and a nurse came in to see if she could help calm him.
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Martin reported that they both got decent sleep last night. That was good news when I went to the hospital this morning so that Martin could go to work.
About five minutes after he left for work, the team of doctors returned (of course), and were as cautiously optimistic as you‘d expect from German professionals.
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Proof he is 100 percent my child, of my flesh and blood … he refused to let go of the waffle. REFUSED. The nurse came with a new bag of antibiotics, to plug into his IV port, and the look he gave her as she reached for his hand was HILARIOUS … like, “Ma’am, you are gonna have to work around the breakfast food, sorrynotsorry.”
As he napped, he stirred every few moments to nibble on it with his eyes closed.
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I slept for a few hours, but I woke up feeling energized at midnight. No surprise: I was supposed to start working an overnight shift this week, and had adjusted my sleep schedule to accommodate.
So I’m putting the energy to use, doing what I do when I feel like I have no control over anything … CLEAN. Sanitizing ALL the things: surfaces, toys, stuffed animals. Laundry. Ironing Martin‘s work suits. Staying busy.
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Our baby boy is very sick. What seemed to be a typical chest cold very rapidly became something different this morning, and he’s now at the children’s hospital hooked up to oxygen, fluids, and antibiotics.
They’ve ruled out the flu, RSV, and asthma, but it’s obviously a lung infection and we are going to be here for at least a week as they figure out how to get him feeling better. He’s miserable. Meanwhile, my stomach and heart feel clamped in a vice. I birthed such beautiful, strong boys with such big, brave hearts … and sensitive lungs. Ughhhhhh…
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“Tell Julie she didn’t kill any of them.”
That was the message relayed to me from Katherine at Arcadia Farm in Northern Virginia. During my work trip last week, I took a personal day to run some errands and spend a few hours volunteering with my friend and sister veteran, Jenn, at this farm located on property once owned by George Washington.
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You may remember when I first wrote about that day in Afghanistan.
There was an incident that day that I left out of the blog. To summarize: there were 22 people on that mission: five of us were female. We hiked to a remote village to set up medical clinics: one for men, and one for women & children. I was there to document.
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She brings me my guitar last night, and goes, ”Mom, will you teach me again how to play the guitar?“
Me: ”Of course! It’s been awhile, but let me see…“
I take it from her, tune it, and start playing the intro to ”Hey, Joe“ by Jimi Hendrix.
She watches, smiles, and says, ”I bet this really gets the boys‘ attention.“
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Question 1205: What’s the kindest thing you’ve done for a stranger?
Random acts of kindness are an important part of my life. I think this comes from the idea that the world needs more positive and loving energy, so why not put that out there whenever possible? If it’s true that everyone has a particular love language, giving is absolutely mine.
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Lola and I are the only two in this family to need glasses, the only ones to know how great it feels to see the world again without smudges and fingerprints and frames off-kilter on the nose.
So we try to look out for each other, pun intended, with the lens wipes and reminders to rinse those frames.
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