I simply want to hole up like a bear and remain that way until the twenty-eighth (or twenty-seventh. I never keep up with Leap Year) of this month.
You see, February has been the month that I have always despised more than any other month of the year. I think it started in junior high with all that Valentine's crap. I really shouldn't feel this way. After all, Bud's birthday is in February, but so many bad things have happened or seem to all happen in February. And it doesn't even seem to help that it's the shortest month of the year.
February's case is not being helped this year since it will mark the first year of my dad's passing and that has been weighing heavily on my soul. It's taken me exactly a year to even start to accept that he's not coming back. There are some days where I question if his illness, days spent as a kid with him helping me with my homework, him walking me down the aisle, even happened or if it was somebody else's life.
That's my new issue with February.
Then February turns around and tinkles in my Cheerios: the whole family has been sick with a respiratory thing and it leaves you guessing as to whether you will ever recuperate. Bud has had colds before, but they have always been short-lived. For a NICU baby and for also still being underweight, he has always seemed to be a pretty healthy guy. But this thing has really knocked all of us for a loop, and Bud is trying very hard not to let this thing keep him down. Just when we believed that he was getting over it - head is less stuffy, cough doesn't sound like a horse with tuberculosis, he wakes up at three in the morning (nothing good ever happens at three in the morning) sounding like that horse with tuberculosis. And I just knew, at three in the morning, that I would be taking him to the clinic - not as early as I had expected since he slept in, but I knew.
I got him to this super great children's walk-in clinic (we had been there once before) and we waited to be seen by the doctor. She was fabulous. I immediately told her that I was probably overreacting but because of his "ears" I didn't want to run the risk of Bud getting an ear infection. I was feeling pretty confident since I always take him to get his ears checked out at the end of a cold, but something in the back of my mind said not to jump up on my high horse just yet. Good thing I didn't. He has a slight infection in one ear and fluid starting to build in the other. She said that we caught it very early and that's probably why he had not been complaining about ear pain. We got our antibiotics right there in the office. She wanted to "go ahead and nip it in the bud," (no pun intended) and Bud got to play in the play house (with a working door bell!) while she set up the antibiotics. Love that place. He will be seen by his regular pediatrician in a couple of days for a check up so we will have his ears looked at again. Yes, I realize that seems redundant, but let's stop a minute and talk about the sense of urgency you feel when your child's implants might be jeopardized. You never want to waste a second to get your child's ear infection cleared up if it's possible. Let's also talk a second about how we wouldn't have even been able to move our regular doctor's appointment up to today because it sometimes takes us two to three weeks to be seen. Longer conversation on the travesties of our health care system in another post. Today, let me revel in one small victory.
As wonderful as the kids' clinic is, it's torture on the parents trying to drag their kids away, or at least my kid, from all of the wonderful toys and the play house with the working doorbell. I had to literally drag Bud out of the office kicking and screaming and we lost his Superman hat in the midst of the melee. That lead to an unplanned and much later in the morning trip to Target ("Tahgit! as Bud says) in an effort to pick up another hat. We're not finished with winter up here yet. I don't even have the energy to get into the "Tahgit!" trip as we were just going in for a hat and I let him walk in without putting him into a cart. All I will say is that with the exception of having to hold my hand until we got to the boys' section, he was free. He enjoyed every minute of it. I did not.
When we got home, he collapsed into a bundle of coughs, snots, whining and general irritability. It was an early nap time, and I had to go back in and help him to settle down to sleep several times this afternoon. I slipped back into that old, horrible feeling of "my poor child who can't hear." I know, I hate it too, and I hate feeling that way, but it was a fleeting thought of how a simple cold can become a much more serious matter for a child with implants. I hated that he had to go through all of this. Again. And I hate that we will always go through this. Again.
February isn't helping either. It's hard. It's sometimes one of your most bitter cold months. It's highlighted by the capitalists' obsession with making money off desperate men to please their wives, girlfriends, whoever, and it brings women and girls to tears if their significant others don't come through, or if they have no one to love at all. February feels the need to pull out that poor, fat little fuzzy groundhog out of his comfy hole in an effort to appease the masses that winter will come to a quick end. And every year on Groundhog Day it never fails when that voice in my head screams "Leave him the hell alone!" Seriously, where is PETA?
I have been feeling like that groundhog probably felt. It's a passing feeling, it's a phase, but it's also a beaten down feeling. The feeling that you just about have everything under control, and then suddenly, there's more speech appointments, everybody gets sick, and then there's the first ear infection, warmer temps followed by surprise winter weather warnings, and then the reminder that you no longer have your father and you still don't know what to do about it. It's the sensation that grips your chest when you realize that technically you're an adult, but maybe you're just not that skilled at it. And that thought is abruptly interrupted by a shrill shrieking of your three year old letting you know that you damn sure better figure out at least how to pretend to be an adult.
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