My heart breaks for all of the sadness in the world. It’s especially hard when it hits closer to home, even when the sadness comes upon friends of friends, not people I know personally.
I think the blogosphere shared a collective gasp when we heard about Anissa‘s stroke earlier this week. Shortly afterwards, I heard from my blogging friend SusieJ who let me know that her dear, sweet friend Stefanie had lost her long battle with cancer.
These women have children and husbands and family and friends who need prayers. Pray for them, will you?
With so much sadness, I needed to do something positive for someone else. As many of you know, I was a military brat and my husband served in the military during the early years of our marriage. There are so many men and women who are serving our country overseas these days. Can you take a minute to join me in thanking them for their sacrifice? For their time away from their families? For their willingness to serve our country, possibly with their very lives? Xerox is sponsoring this website–you can choose a thank-you card which they will print and send to a soldier. It’s free to you and could make a world of difference to a lonely soldier during his or her deployment. Consider doing this, too, will you?
Here at our house, we’re flu shot getters, yes we are. Every year I line ’em up, they hold out their arm, & they get the little prick that means, “Hey, hopefully we won’t get the flu this year.” The fact that we always get something hasn’t deterred me. I’m sure the health care professionals are telling me the truth when they say we’ve just caught a “different strain.”
This year, like most people I know, we had trouble finding the vaccine. Our doctor’s office ran out, all 6 pharmacies I called ran out, and no one (other than the doctor) wants to give the shot to kids under 10, anyway.
Finally I tracked down the Visiting Nurses Association, pulled the kids out of school early, and showed up at 3:30 for a clinic that started at 4:00. We were 32nd in line.
So okay. I didn’t mind the wait. Everyone got the seasonal flu shot & I felt a little better. Classrooms in our district have had 9-11 kids out, regularly, mostly with flu-like symptoms. It’s been two weeks now since we stuck our arms out. We should be okay on that front, right?
I keep calling our doctor’s office to see if they’ve received the H1N1 vaccine. Nope, not yet. In fact, yesterday when I called, the message they play before you speak to an actual person said, “Please be advised that we are out of the seasonal flu shot and do not have the H1N1 vaccine yet. Please call back after November 16 to see if we have received it.”
They’re kidding, right? November 16? I left a message for the nurse to see where I might find this precious gem of a vaccine for my little one who has asthma. “Oh, he can only have the injection, not the flu mist.” (Well, duh. That much I knew.) “And we only have the flu mist.”
Huh?
“What?” I asked. “You have the flu mist for the seasonal flu, or the flu mist for the H1N1.”
“We have it for H1N1, but he can’t have that.”
“Well WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF US?”
“Yes, I can schedule that.”
Can somebody help me out here? Didn’t I just listen to the recording tell me to call back after November 16?
Yep, mildly miffed.
Also, I’m having trouble understanding why the perfectly healthy members of my family can all be vaccinated, but the child most likely to have trouble is left out in the cold, waiting for an injectable vaccine that may or may not arrive. By November 16.
Have I mentioned that we’ve had some head trauma around here?
A few weeks ago, the most random thing happened. My 10-year old was sitting on the floor in his room, picking up a treasured football card that had fallen to the ground, and a full-size bowling pin fell off a shelf and whacked him in the back of the head.
I know, random. I told you.
For the record, the bowling pin was a favor from a birthday party years ago. The party was at the bowling alley, obviously, and afterwards, all of the kids signed the pin & he got to bring it home. It seemed like a logical thing to put on his shelf of treasures. Until this happened, that is. Now, of course, it seems like a really stupid, heavy, dangerous object to put on a shelf in a boy’s room. Retrospect provides that kind of perspective for you.
He’s fine, first of all. But initially, he wasn’t doing so hot. He turned gray, wobbled, thought he was going to lose his dinner, and had an extremely difficult time staying awake. We were yelling to try to keep him conscious. Yes, I called 911. Yes, we went to the emergency room. If you’ve ever experienced something like this, you know that there isn’t much they can do. You wait it out and hope for the best.
Unfortunately, he’d been there before. When he was only 2, just a tiny little guy, he ran inside after having tromped through the wet grass with his tennis shoes on. He slipped on our wood entryway floor and hit his head hard. His eyes rolled up, he stopped breathing, and in the midst of my screaming and the chaos I wondered if it was his last day. It was horrible, really horrible. That day, I rode in the ambulance with him, trying to be strong and it changed me. I worry more, even though I know it’s pointless. I worry about accidents because we had one and we got lucky. He’s had lots of happy days since but I’ve never forgotten the terror of that moment.
Last night, he was out in the yard playing touch football. He collided with a friend’s tooth and came home with a 1/2-inch gash in his scalp. My husband was out of town, so I had to take a good look. For the first time in my life, it made me lightheaded. I had to call my 13-year old in and explain that if I passed out, he should get our neighbor right away. (Thanks, Susie and Aaron, for always helping.) Fortunately I came to my senses & didn’t pass out. We called the doctor and I described the accident and wound as best I could. How’s this for gross? Since it was a tooth that caused the damage, there’s a higher risk of infection, so they don’t like to stitch or staple the scalp shut. Let’s just say he looks a little like Head Wound Harry today.
I’ll be very glad when he’s all healed up, and, if I could ask a favor of the universe (Hey God, Could you help me out here?), I would like no more head injuries or gross bloody gashes for a good long time. That would be swell.
