From The Children's Ward

Another first. Blogging from a hospital ward.

I guess I should have mentioned this from the very first - but some things are better shoved on a shelf as long as is technically possible.
Confession: we have a daughter sick with Leukemia. She has been sick for a while now - close on to five months. The reason it took me an entire month to post my SECOND post in this brand new blog was due to the sorry fact that I have spent most of that month on the children's ward coaxing her white blood count up to tolerable levels...

Anyway - we are back home now , thank G-d, and are starting day-treatments - a far more acceptable way of dealing with Leukemia. (Not that anyone is asking for my opinon, to be honest...).

The silly thing is, I could have blogged a whole month long. I discovered today that the outpatient clinic's cubicles are kindly kitted out with network connections. Your gain. You might have found it mighty monotonous reading my blogs day in, day out. They would have read something like this:

Day on the Children's Hemato-Oncology Ward
Breakfast tray delivery.
Blood tests.
Doctors rounds.
Breakfast tray removed (untouched by dear daughter, Debbie).
Antibiotics pushed through her port-a-cath.
Debbie gets up - untangles ten meters of plastic tubing to get the IV pole to the W.C.
Debbie returns - buries her nose in a book. I bury mine in my laptop.
Noses rise to communicate once in a while, but the morning passes in companionable silence.
Lunch tray delivery.
Debbie agrees to take a mandatory peek and returns to her self-imposed hunger strike.
I reiterate my daily offering: "Hot cocoa and cookies? Omelette? fresh fruit? Cereal? Pizza?" to no avail. Honestly, I don't know why I bother. To make me feel better, I guess.
Lunch tray is removed untouched.
Afternoon ward traffic begins: a trail of good samaritans searching for willing guniea pigs (or non-willing. They don't always ask...):
Volunteers arrive to socialize with Debbie - a rambunctious group of teenage girls if I have ever seen one. They manage to cajole her into preparing chocolate pudding and eating three entire spoonfuls. (Not exactly commendable nutrition for hunger-striking, Leukemic child. But you know what? I feel like kissing their chunky, funky, army boots...). They leave amidst noisy farewells -hugs; kisses; claps and whistles - and emphatic promises of a speedy return.
The bed-hugging curtain has barely been closed for an instant before a short clipped raven haircut peeks coyly round the side of it. After a perfunctory request to enter (not that a refusal was ever on the cards...) our resident psychologist perches at the end of Debbie's bed.
A forty-minute monologue by our resident psychologist follows. Debbie raises an eyebrow over the rim of her book once in five minutes and hums in agreement once in ten. I smile as much as I can to make up for my daughter's behaviour, but feel like doing exactly the same. My laptop is as compelling as her book, after all.
Our case worker leaves, feeling good with herself for having worked a sick child through paralysing phobias. Tonight she will sit in her lounge-wear, drinking a hot cup of cocoa, typing up her case notes:
"D.T: A.L.L. sufferer. Fifth month of treatment.Twelth hundredth session.
Major breakthough today. Resistance on the wane. Child's defenses are softening - three hums more than yesterday. I think she is ready to start embracing her disease.
THERAPEUTIC INTERVENTIONS: Art therapy recommended. Shall encourage D. to accompany me to play room. Together we shall form white cells out of plasticine and surround them with pink hearts; We shall create huge poster of monster cells -so she can shoot at them with water gun.
THERAPEUTIC OBJECTIVES:
In a safe, contained atmosphere it is hoped said patient will learn to combat her illness with a healthy assertiveness. She should feel less threatened by disease. Ideally, should feel empowered to live or die as she pleases."


Debbie will write in her diary (Okay - were she keeping one - this is what she would have written:)
Tuesday.. x/x/2007
Twelth hundredth session with H.: Fed up of being spoon-vomited. Do not want to cough up all my feelings. Prefer reading. Period. Wish she would go and visit her own children so she could sit at the end of their beds for a change. Period.
P.S. I hate getting wet and would rather get Leukemia than shoot at dots like a baby.
P.S.S. Mummy bought me the latest C.Walder book. Fan-double-tastic. Just what I wanted and made me feel all better. Wish my mummy was my psychologist.

(Okay, okay - maybe she wouldn't have written that last line - but a mother can dream).


Debbie is just settling back into chapter eleven when two phone calls come through for her in rapid succession. The first she receives with true enthusiasm - it's her best friend, Ruthie. They catch up on the latest chit-chat with all the gravity of George W. consulting with Putin. I am dying to listen in, but conquer the urge. I am living in close quarters with my daughter for days on end - I would be foolish to do anything to risk dorm harmony.
On the second call she reverts to grumpiness. She doesn't have much energy for parroting her state of mind to casual well-wishers.
In case you haven't yet caught on - she isn't much of an extrovert, my sweet, serene daughter. The ironies of life. If my eldest daughter would have been the one to get sick - she would have enjoyed milking the attention for all it was worth. I am sure the injustice of it all has not failed to cross her dramatic, adolescent mind.
Dinner tray arrives - far too early for an evening meal - but the kitchen workers have to get home to theirs, so patients shouldn't be too choosy.
Anyway, Debbie couldn't care less. She doesn't even peeks at the evening tray.
Today she has eaten : three spoons of chocolate pudding, half a tangerine - the other half still languishes by her bedside, and a whole load of nothing else.
I hope we get her out of hospitalisation soon enough to prevent lethal startvation.

*******

Well - the above is what you may have read every day (with minor changes) day in; day out for the past month.
As you can see - we have managed to escape with our daughter still weighing in at just over forty pounds...
We have been home for three whole (blissful!!) days and Debbie's apetite has been magically restored. I'm eating so much now, mummy! she declared at lunchtime yesterday with an impish giggle. Do you think I'm going to get fat? she asked deliciously, and smoothed down her near-skeletal hips in concern. Somehow, I don't think so, dear, I answered. I don't really think you need to worry about that sort of thing for the time being. Luckily, her egg - sunny-side-up just as she loves it - looked far too inviting to permit further deliberation.

I didn't quite feel like explaining myself, so I rested my case and watched appreciatively as she simply tucked in.

So - we're back to the outpatient clinic for now. Heaven.
(Heaven is an awfully subjective place.)

Byyyye, Byyyye in the Night

Night time again.
Am I the only parent in the world whose day begins at 22 hours? Sometimes I wonder.

I have just survived two consecutive days of through-entire-night screaming.
The scenarios went something like this:
Bottle? Nod. Whimpered Yea... Shove. No bottle.
Cookie? Nod. Nod. Excited Yea... Shove. No cookie.
Diaper? Vigorous Yea... begin changing diaper - MEGA SCREAM. No diaper.
Get it? That's nice, because I don't.

By the first signs of sunrise I was composing the Ad I was determined to place on ebay first thing in the morning:
Coppercurled Baby with toothy grin and penchant for music. Very musical - anything goes - self compositions included, nocturnal symphonies in particular. Going for a song.

Luckily for the both of us she fell into a drunken stupor (drunk on woe) just in time for me to gain some sanity with a couple of hours of first-aid sleep. I bundled her off to nursery before I did anything else this morning and returned to send off the others before meditating on the joys of motherhood. After that I decided to keep her. (But if anyone out there is looking for a baby, keep your eyes posted. Who knows - my baby might get really reckless and stay up one hour too many next time round - that might just be your lucky day).

Seriously now - my husband and I have spent over eighteen months waiting for our baby's fussy stage to roll by. It is rolling - in the wrong direction. Volume up instead of volume down. We have become satellite residents of the local health-care clinic - turning up there three times a week on average, begging for salvation. Our pediatrician doesn't have much sympathy by now. He told us long ago that Coppercurls is a High-Needs child. With all the hubris of a mother of six, and two centuries worth of British prejudice I poo-pooed his diagnosis with a rapid chuckle. "Yanks. Everything has to have a label. Perhaps I have some sort of sleep disorder, too - after all I haven't slept in months..."
Today I looked my arrogance in the face, and googled High-Needs Child with decided despair. You are invited to do the same. I simply do not have the patience to cut and paste ninety-seven million pages for your further education. But it certainly proves the point - it wasn't a figment of my pediatrician's Hollywood-inspired imagination. I shall have to remember to send a card and some chocolates before he sues for libel (don't ya know - you can get sued for anything in the USA).
Anyway - I guess I owe my darling tot an apology as well. (Mind you - I don't think one from her would be remiss either... ).

The last thing she tried on me before laying her cute little head down to sleep last night was "byyyyye, byyyyye...." - with a puppy-eyed look that would melt the rock of Gibraltar and a dimpled elbow outstretched, finger pointing at her bedroom door.

Byyyye, Byyye... Now ain't that just a marvellous idea? But who's going to put you to bed then, m'dear?