Illness and Aloneness

Ugh. I have been sick. So I'll do a brief synopsis of the past week to catch you all up.

Friday night, the kids lasted in the tent for about 5 mins and then all came in to pee and never quite made it back into their sleeping bags so were tucked up in their own beds by 8pm.

Then on Sat we went to a seder a a friend's house. A marvelous time was had by all and we left very very late and spent Sunday in a post party stupor. Then Monday Willa came down with Jude's thing from last week and was home Tuesday and Weds. Tuesday I got it and was in bed for most of Thurs and Fri except when I got up to make cupcakes and cake for Jude's school snack and party. From what I saw of it, Jude seemed to have a pretty good birthday. Certainly he seemed pretty happy. Now we just have to get through his party. Jon is just starting to get sick and I am just hitting recovery, so hopefully between us we will manage to survive for the hour and a half.

So yesterday as I was sitting in the armchair in my 101F fever stupor, I started thinking about how lucky I was that Jon is unemployed right now. If he weren't, I never would have been able to get anything done. We would have had to cancel the party. And I was thinking about my love hate relationship with connecting to people on our big event days, like birthdays. I love hearing from people, but it also reinforces how alone I feel. Throw in being sick on top of that and having no one to call on for help outside our immediate family and I feel really really alone.

Two stories from our recent past keep flashing through my head.

One was in Nov when we were in the UK just before we moved over here. We met some friends we hadn't seen in years at a pub garden so we could meet each other's kids and just chat and catch up. Jon's sister dropped us off and said she would come back to get us at around 2pm. So we had lunch and let the kids play. It was really nice. But then Hazel pooped in her pants. Fine, I had spare clothes for her, so we changed her and carried on. Then she peed in her new clothes and I was out of spares. So I put her in one of Simon's diapers which barely fit and let her run around in just that, but it was Nov in the UK and a bit cold for just a t-shirt and a diaper, but I didn't really know what else to do. Our ride wasn't due for at least 40 mins.

After watching me send Hazel back to play in the cold and sit down and watch her worriedly, our friend gently suggested to me that maybe now might be a good time to call Jon's sister and have her pick us up early. I remember just looking at her in shock. Of course! For once I wasn't actually stuck in a horrible situation. There was help within calling distance! So we called her and in 10 mins we were bundled up in a warm car heading toward clean clothes.

I have often wondered what these friends made of us in that pub garden. I suppose to normal people it would seem fantastic that it wouldn't occur to us to call for help, but it is so rare that we have anyone to call when we get into a tight space. More normal for us is what happened when I was due with Simon.

I used to lie awake at night and panic about what would happen if I went into premature labor and had to go to the hospital to deliver him. You might think that I had a homebirth because I am a granola crunchie natural child birth proponent, but you would be wrong. Now I did have precipitate labors so drugs were never an option for me, regardless of what I might have preferred. As for the home thing, there was no one to watch the other kids. We could never figure out how to make the hospital birth thing work in France. Jon would just drop me off at the door and say good luck? Then pick me up a few days later? I know from previous experience that my ability to use foreign vocabulary, be it French or just British terms I normally use without thinking, disappears during labor. So just hope that the people in the maternite spoke enough English to understand me, without anyone there who knew me and my history to help me? The thought was terrifying.

But a homebirth only answered some of my fears. What if I needed to be transferred? Precipitate labors as well as women giving birth many times are at a higher risk, although still quite low, of hemmorhage. My midwife was quite worried for me with all the stress I had anyway. So what if I needed to be transferred in the middle of the night? What would we have done with the other kids? Leave them home alone for the 40 mins that Jon was gone and hope for the best? What if there was something wrong with the baby? I would be stuck in the maternite by myself, without Jon or any other support, having to make potentially major medical decisions on my own?

Like I said, it kept me awake at night. And, even if we weren't already done having kids, just the memory of that fear would be enough to keep me from ever getting pregnant again. But there was no one we could call. No one who could come and help us. That is my normal. We were all very relieved when it was all over and had gone okay.

But of course things like that crop up all the time. You don't have to be pregnant to lie awake at night worrying about the consequences of being completely alone.

On May 9 we have our appointment for Simon and Jude at the urologist. Jude just to update on his bladder reflux and Simon to check out a potentially undescended testicle. Neither of these things are really monumental, but my mind can't help but worry. What if Simon does have an undescended testicle? What if he needs surgery to correct it? Not major surgery my any means, but I wouldn't want to be sitting at home with the other kids while he went through it at the hospital with Jon. And I wouldn't want to be at the hospital sitting in a waiting room by myself and not have Jon there to hold hands with because he was at home with the other kids. But what else could we do? Unlike that day in the pub garden, this is our regular life. We are on our own.

I guess I should just go back to being sick and getting ready for Jude's party. I need to stop the stress spiral. I have a treasure hunt to plan.