31 for 21: #17 Soap and Hyperventilation

I smelled hospital soap at church this week.  I started getting tight in my chest...all the fight-or-flight feelings started checking in.  If I was short to you at any point on Sunday, I'd really like to apologize.  It wasn't you.

Hospital soap has a very distinct scent.  There are disinfectants in it, I am sure.  But it makes my brain go into overload.  As a matter of fact, it starred in its own post last year.  Read it HERE.

I don't care how many years pass...if your child had cancer, it lurks in the periphery.  Forever.  The moment your child vomits or coughs so hard it causes petichiae, you have to stop yourself from having a nervous breakdown.  The second your child gets sick and lethargic and there is no explanation (common in childhood) then its all you can do to keep from hyperventilating.  This goes for all successive children, too.  It doesn't matter if they had a clean bill of health from the oncology doctor the day before, the panic sets in.  Bruises from being a kid become a source of worry.  In a nutshell, you get a little gun-shy.

If you smell soap, you are drawn right back.  The sound of tape being pulled open becomes the equivalent of a gun-shot.  The driving up to the hospital is like going back home...but it will just about put you IN a home...for crazy people.  It's like being hugged to death by a python...the comfort of familiarity grows stifling...and then painful...It's really hard to put into words...so I am going to let you just follow that stream-of-consciousness instead of cleaning up, because it kinda makes sense...

Tomorrow Elise goes to her amazing oncology doctors for her 6 month visit.  AND about 4 other specialists...if it is going to be a day from hell, let's just knock them all out instead of spreading it out over 5 hellish days, right? 

Why I am sure it's going to be a terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-day?  Because Elise has fasting labs.  Yuh.  Clear now?  She fixates on eating.  So cut that off, and then add blood draws and sonogram gel...and it becomes a purgatory so dreadful I doubt Dante himself would argue....he'd probably add another circle.

Each year she gets stronger.  And harder to pinion for her blood draws.  It used to be me.  Then it was me tapped out, then it was me and one other nurse.  Now it's me and 2 nurses.  Low muscle tone!  HA!

Last visit was aw.ful. I snapped this picture on a whim.  It pretty much sums up her attitude.

Tomorrow, however, I will be short a couple of extra hungry, snarky, kids.  My mother is being gracious to watch Elise's sibs so it will only cause a throbbing headache, and not an anuerism.  I am incredibly thankful.  You have no idea.

And as always, we will diverge from our current diet choices and drown our sorrows in Chik-fil-a on our way home.  And all will be forgiven until the next 6 months visit.

If you have a second, a prayer for tomorrow would be appreciated.