because it just feels good...

It is Friday.  I am sure this is obvious to everyone else and I am sorry to state the obvious.  But you see, it is not so obvious to those of us with lives as crazy as a circus on steroids.  Somehow I convince myself life is going to inevitably slow down, that the cycle of neverending tasks, appointments, work, caring for three children, is going to miraculously cut me some slack and allow me to take a break.

I am here to say it never happens.

Ever.

And honestly, I don't know if I would even have any clue how to handle a normally paced daily existence.  Lately I've been dealing with the ever travelling Moose and what that means for our household.  And when I say ever-travelling, I mean he has been on the road for a total of over seven weeks since the end of February.  

 It's not all at one time.  

Sometimes it has just been four or five days.  But he just returned from a sixteen day trip and less than a month ago, he was gone for something like twenty.  I will tell you, what you think you will never be able to handle is almost always doable.  If you had told me six months ago, I would be single-parenting my three kids for almost two months this spring, I would have told you you were crazy. 

But, I have done it.  And if I do say so myself, I have done it well.  I've handled car troubles.  Twice.  I've handled Max crises, including a three day odyssey in the hospital.  I've cared for our three chicks, our three children, our cat and our dog.  And I've maintained my mostly normal work schedule.

Yes.  I've done it all.  But, don't label me super-mom.

I've had help.  Moose's company has been paying directly for an oncall nanny service for the majority of these trips and I am so unbelievably thrilled with the service that I find myself wanting to reach through the phone and kiss Paul, one of the owners of the service, everytime he tells me they can do whatever crazy schedule I have had to come up with to balance everything.  I guess because I am not paying for it myself, I keep forgetting these people are actually getting paid to help me and that they aren't doing it out of the kindness of their hearts.  I generally only end up using them when I do actually need to be at work, except that I do allow myself 1 day of what I call "sanity-relief", where I have someone come in and I use that for "me" time.

I could not do this without them.

Max is going through what is termed "acute kidney rejection".  It sounds bad, doesn't it?  It's definitely not good, but it isn't as bad as it could be.  Acute kidney rejection is treatable if caught early enough and hopefully his was.  It is likely a result of the immunosuppressant dance we've been having to perform in order to keep what I secretly call the burger-king virus under control.  Burger-king because the actual name of the virus is the BK virus.  It pains me that I immediately associate BK with a fastfood restaurant I refuse to even step foot in or drive-through, as the case may be. 

But I digress.  I've posted about this before.  I posted about it a year and a half ago when it reared its ugly head.  It's an insidious little virus which could be the demise of Max's kidney.

Only time will tell and obviously a great deal of time since we've been dealing with this little bugger for a year and a half and only just now are we seeing the rejection we always knew was a possibility.

As I sat in the hospital with Max during the days and with all three kids at night, I had moments to reflect on life with Max.  This was not the worst.  In fact, the intense worry I've felt at various times in my relatively short time with Max in my life, was just a shadow of its former self.  I can't tell if this is because I can now put things in a perspective I used to find difficult, or if I am somewhat deadened to the spikes of worry that used to invade me time and again, or if I am just able to take what the doctors say at face value and realize this whole situation is only mildly concerning.

Regardless.  I've come a long, long way, baby.  We all have. 

I met someone when we were in the hospital.  Another mother.  Another mother who is dealing with not just one very sick child, but two and no, they are not twins.  And no, they do not have chronic kidney disease or anything renal related.  She struck a chord in me.  I think we recognized in each other, a kindred spirit.  Someone else who understands the yawning, gaping fear, the stress, the fact that noone else understands, no matter how much they empathsize with you, no matter how much they love you.

I don't know if that burgeoning spark of a friendship will sustain itself, but one thing it showed me is that I have a wealth of experience to offer and that there is something truly satisfying about offering that experience and offering a listening ear to someone when they are in need.  It also showed me that I should try to find time to offer myself in that way, either through some type of support group or as a volunteer, regardless of how crazy my own life is.

So, even if we can't find the time to nurture this relationship with each other, I think I need to investigate how to do something for others.

Because it just feels good.

It does.