I'm two weeks in to my third round of childcare-induced pneumonia. How am I feeling? I am fine while I quarantine myself inside my apartment, padding around in my socks from bedroom to living room and back again. I am especially fine when my babysitter isn't out sick for three days. But this time around the circuit, I decided to conduct an experiment. And I think I'm ready to present some preliminary findings. They are not very hopeful.
The night the sentence was handed down, I started by texting a friend while I was in the pharmacy waiting for my antibiotics prescription to be ready. Oh no! she said. Is there anything I can do? Well, at that very moment, not really. She did offer a couple of times since then, and I made several attempts to get her and her very tightly-scheduled toddler son to come for a playdate with me and Abe, but no dice.
I then decided to appeal to Facebook. I have a number of friends on Facebook. Not in the thousands, mind you, but a nice comfortable number, and a good mix of local and remote people. Now, the fact is, I tend to keep to myself, and I married someone who tends to keep to himself, and together we are a couple of loners. I've tried numerous times in my life to insinuate myself into a community, to the point that I become an indispensable part of one, and my presence is solicited and I'm missed when I'm not there. Other than my work life (where I was being paid to be there, and had a job to perform), I can't say I have succeeded at this. Combine with this the fact that being a stay-at-home mom is isolating in itself, particularly when you still have kids who nap and it is so hard to sync schedules with the parents of other napping children, and you start to see one possible source of the stress that has bounced me back to the province of the sick for the third time in as many years. So I started posting on Facebook. Pithy stuff. Gritty realism. Awww, look what kid x said stuff. Even a bald-faced attempt to bribe someone to come over and make granola for me, since I had my mind set on a particular recipe, but no energy to make it happen. What was I hoping for? What was the desired outcome? It has to do with community.
For the past two years, I have been involved with the PTA at Jonah's school. I have taken on the role of coordinator for getting meals to families who have had new babies. I have arranged dozens meals for families, many of whom I don't know and haven't even met, all because we had the same thing happen when Abe was born, and I was so bowled over by the gesture I decided to make it my job to ensure every family who had a baby had the same opportunity to feel cared for. I'm friends with a lot of parents from Jonah's school on Facebook. So, naturally, I thought some of those folks might step forward with offers of meals, playdates, or just say that they could bring Jonah home from school until I was well. I even asked to relocate a PTA meeting to my home because of my pneumonia. Everyone came. No one brought anything. I served them tea.
One person did get it. One. She made us some meatballs that were so delicious I thought I might cry while I was eating them. In fact I think I did. And she said what I was hoping to hear from others, that given how many others I have helped, I deserved a turn to get some help too. In the interest of full disclosure, and lest I understate the facts, another friend brought banana bread (thoughtfully using honey instead of sugar, because of my new self-imposed dietary restriction). And more recently another friend brought a lasagna. Neither of these people learned about my plight on Facebook, however.
Josh and I are traveling tomorrow, a trip to Puerto Rico to celebrate my 40th birthday, and we're leaving the kids behind. I'd like to think that perhaps wires got crossed, messages got muddled, and people think I am just fine now since I'm going on a trip, and that this is why no one else came forward. Yesterday, with the sitter here, I ventured out to find some new warm-weather clothes. I was only in the store for a few minutes when my chest tightened and I thought I might pass out. It felt like a panic attack, but more likely was the start of a relapse. I've had several hot flashes since then, which I have learned are just as dangerous as a temperature actually registering on the thermometer (I didn't have one, not once, this whole time). I am seeing the doctor for a followup this evening, and I'm petrified that things have taken a bad turn and that I won't be able to travel after all.
I'm taking this lack of response way harder than I should, I realize, but perhaps that's because of a very low blow from my mom this morning on the phone. She isn't nearby and is currently incapacitated, so all she has been able to do is field my anguished and stressed out phone calls this whole time. Today, she snapped and said that this is all because I've chosen to live in New York, and having made that choice, I have to deal with it. This is the first time she's been quite this insensitive. I get that she's frustrated from not being able to help me, but it felt like a wanton bridge-burning to me. She apologized, because my father yelled at her for saying it, but she hasn't called back to make things right.
I want to believe there is not some seismic shift going on here, that this is just the result of pneumonia which is the result of negligent care-taking of myself (and considerable stress), but I really feel like things have changed. I suddenly feel no particular allegiance to the community I've tried to make myself a part of for the past few years, since there seems to be a lack of recognition that being sick is just as valid a reason for helping as having a new baby in the house. Or, is it that people don't understand the extent of pneumonia? That they don't realize if your lungs aren't functioning 100%, you are simply fucked? I can be "feeling" "better" and still be up shit's creek in terms of my job as a mom. I don't have a consumptive cough or any other outward symptoms right now, other than looking like crap and inability to walk up a flight of stairs without hyperventilating.
I better stop as Jonah is coming home from school soon (I had my daily scramble to arrange someone to walk him home). I don't know if anyone's following this blog regularly anymore, but if so, and your name starts with A., I know that you've had pneumonia recently too, and I'm sorry I wasn't more proactive about helping you, as far away from me as you live. I could have sent food, could have sent some dehydrated soup packets or some astronaut ice cream or even just a book for you to read, and I didn't. I'm really sorry.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Pneumonia, round three
Here we are again. Me, one good lung, one sick one. I am starting to be able to measure out my life as a mom in the intervals between bouts with pneumonia. The worst one remains the late October 2008 one, the one that landed me in the ER and then forced me to recuperate for a full month. The night of the presidential election I lay in bed, listening to mayhem erupt across Brooklyn, crying (because I couldn't join in, not only because I was sick, but because I didn't believe in or vote for the winner... or the loser, for that matter). Jonah was 22.5 months at the time, and I remember how upset he was at first that I couldn't pick him up, couldn't go out to play with him. Suddenly he had an Invalid Mama. But then he remembered how good it was to snuggle up and read books, and all was OK.
Seventeen months later, May 2010, I also had a three month old, so I guess that explains why I hadn't been paying attention to the cold that had been festering for weeks. Bam! Back to bed. At least it was welcome relief from the sheer exhaustion of being a mom to two. And I could still nurse Abe. I can't really remember how Jonah took it, but he was in school at that point, so shielded from my incapacity a little more.
Fast forward twenty more months, and here we are again. I spent the first week of the new year full steam ahead with diet plans, giving up sugar, and somehow neglecting the cold that had been dogging me since before the holidays. I was busy, of course - birthday and Chanukah celebrations, thinking and talking about sugar in lieu of eating it, finding ways to make the scale creep lower and lower. Then one morning last week, after a short walk in the neighborhood, I found myself much more out of breath than I should have been. I had no fever, no pain, no elaborate coughing fits. I went to the doctor that afternoon. The nurse hooked up a gizmo to the computer and fitted a disposable tube into it. An illustration of a leafy tree appeared on the screen. I inhaled, then blew through the tube to try to blow all the leaves off the tree. Then I tried again. The nurse clucked with her tongue. I tried another time.
Those fucking leaves! My fucking lungs! I didn't even need to see the doctor to know what I was dealing with. The protracted period of time she spent listening to me breathe just sealed the deal. Again she handed down a sentence: rest. This time, though, I had to demand an explanation. After all, I'd gotten the pneumococcal vaccine after the first time. (The second time, she explained, "Oh, I didn't say that would keep you from GETTING pneumonia. But it keeps you from DYING from it.") The doctor asked if I was under stress. Who, me? Nah... Stress?
Stress is something that happens to other people! Me, I just get pissed off and yell a lot. Me, I just harangue my kid for having sensory issues and not always being able to pay attention when I talk to him, instead of committing to finding ways to work with him, as his teachers and therapists do. Me, I just yell at my nearly-two year old for climbing onto the kitchen table and grabbing the matches, instead of moving them to a high shelf once and for all. And I can't possibly be stressed out, because everyone I meet tells me how very calm I seem.
Yes, I said to the doctor. I said "yes" to stress. I got the name of a social worker to call once I'm well (I'm not going to stress out about the fact she hasn't returned my call. Not yet.) I'm going to try acupuncture to improve my "lung chi." I wasn't aware my lungs had that. Perhaps that is my problem. I'm going to try to remember to take astragalus supplements to boost my lung chi. I'm NOT going to go a solid week forgetting to take my multivitamin because I'm preoccupied with not eating sugar.
The kicker is that in a little less than two weeks, the supposed cure for all this stress is coming, and I hope to be well enough to take it (doctor said it would be fine to go if I promise to just sleep and lie on the beach, which are things I can enjoy, but not for five solid days!). Josh and I are taking a trip to Puerto Rico, our first ever trip without the kids, and the final nail in the coffin of my 40th birthday celebrations. My mother in law is staying with the kids, with our babysitter providing backup. I am worried that the stress of leaving the kids and of wondering what may not be getting done because of the inexperience of the caregiver is going to overwhelm our trip.
I have about ten days to get past this.
Seventeen months later, May 2010, I also had a three month old, so I guess that explains why I hadn't been paying attention to the cold that had been festering for weeks. Bam! Back to bed. At least it was welcome relief from the sheer exhaustion of being a mom to two. And I could still nurse Abe. I can't really remember how Jonah took it, but he was in school at that point, so shielded from my incapacity a little more.
Fast forward twenty more months, and here we are again. I spent the first week of the new year full steam ahead with diet plans, giving up sugar, and somehow neglecting the cold that had been dogging me since before the holidays. I was busy, of course - birthday and Chanukah celebrations, thinking and talking about sugar in lieu of eating it, finding ways to make the scale creep lower and lower. Then one morning last week, after a short walk in the neighborhood, I found myself much more out of breath than I should have been. I had no fever, no pain, no elaborate coughing fits. I went to the doctor that afternoon. The nurse hooked up a gizmo to the computer and fitted a disposable tube into it. An illustration of a leafy tree appeared on the screen. I inhaled, then blew through the tube to try to blow all the leaves off the tree. Then I tried again. The nurse clucked with her tongue. I tried another time.
Those fucking leaves! My fucking lungs! I didn't even need to see the doctor to know what I was dealing with. The protracted period of time she spent listening to me breathe just sealed the deal. Again she handed down a sentence: rest. This time, though, I had to demand an explanation. After all, I'd gotten the pneumococcal vaccine after the first time. (The second time, she explained, "Oh, I didn't say that would keep you from GETTING pneumonia. But it keeps you from DYING from it.") The doctor asked if I was under stress. Who, me? Nah... Stress?
Stress is something that happens to other people! Me, I just get pissed off and yell a lot. Me, I just harangue my kid for having sensory issues and not always being able to pay attention when I talk to him, instead of committing to finding ways to work with him, as his teachers and therapists do. Me, I just yell at my nearly-two year old for climbing onto the kitchen table and grabbing the matches, instead of moving them to a high shelf once and for all. And I can't possibly be stressed out, because everyone I meet tells me how very calm I seem.
Yes, I said to the doctor. I said "yes" to stress. I got the name of a social worker to call once I'm well (I'm not going to stress out about the fact she hasn't returned my call. Not yet.) I'm going to try acupuncture to improve my "lung chi." I wasn't aware my lungs had that. Perhaps that is my problem. I'm going to try to remember to take astragalus supplements to boost my lung chi. I'm NOT going to go a solid week forgetting to take my multivitamin because I'm preoccupied with not eating sugar.
The kicker is that in a little less than two weeks, the supposed cure for all this stress is coming, and I hope to be well enough to take it (doctor said it would be fine to go if I promise to just sleep and lie on the beach, which are things I can enjoy, but not for five solid days!). Josh and I are taking a trip to Puerto Rico, our first ever trip without the kids, and the final nail in the coffin of my 40th birthday celebrations. My mother in law is staying with the kids, with our babysitter providing backup. I am worried that the stress of leaving the kids and of wondering what may not be getting done because of the inexperience of the caregiver is going to overwhelm our trip.
I have about ten days to get past this.
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