Don't Bug Me

Thanks to everyone who offered their 2 cents where the video game is concerned. All in all, it seems as though CJ is not very interested in it anyway, so it is quickly collecting dust, and I might just pack it away out of sight for the time being, per the suggestion of Amy. But we have developed more pressing issues on the home front.

To kick off 2007, there seems to be a plethora of illness going around in my office, at home, in my family, in the mommy blogosphere, even my beloved Mac G4 recently got its first virus in over 6 years. CJ had the flu last week, my mom had bronchitis, my boss’ son had pneumonia, and now Baby Andrew has caught what CJ had last week. So Dave and I together have gotten a grand total of 2.5 hours of sleep over the past 2 nights. Besides the fact that my eyelids are being held open by toothpicks as I type this, you can’t help but feel actual pain in your heart when your child is ill, and the baby’s fidgeting and fussing last night almost made me weep myself. There can’t be anything more pathetic in this world than the face of a child who is sick. (I still can't get the image of Wonderbaby's little urchin face out of my head). But it is still comforting to know that this, too, shall pass, and that the pain in my heart is nowhere near the pain felt by some other mothers out there whose child may have a much more serious illness.

In my “real” world, news of sick children hit home for us twice last year. Our nephew, Nick, was diagnosed with a tumor behind his eye, and underwent weeks of chemotherapy. As of now, he is off the chemo since the tumor neither shrunk nor enlarged, and his long term prognosis is that it is too dangerous to try and surgically remove it, so it will be there for the remainder of his life and he will undergo regular MRIs to keep it in check. I have not written about this before in detail because my husband’s brother rarely talks to us all about it, and him and his wife have all but closed themselves off from the family during their care for him. Without getting phone calls and emails returned, it was impossible to say how he was doing (they live North of us), so when we saw them at Christmas it was good news to hear that he was doing OK, although he looked slim and pale.

Then a few weeks ago, more news came that my BFF’s sister’s son, Jack, was diagnosed with leukemia. I was shocked by the news, as well as her entire family (she is youngest of 11 children), but they have a huge support network, as they are the kind of family that resembles the Kennedy’s without the fame and fortune. Jack’s fate is not yet determined, as he is undergoing chemotherapy right now, and his body so far is reacting positively to the treatment. He is home now, but will be out of school for the next 2 years, continuing his treatment and praying for a recovery. This has radically affected him and his family. We continue to remain hopeful. I'm writing about this for the first time because it just seemed to unreal to think about.

This holiday, there seemed to be so many children affected by illness, I didn’t know where to turn but to my own. So as I hug my baby in the middle of the night, and hold his hand through the pain, I can only hope that the flu will be the extent of his illness. He is so young and has his whole life ahead of him. This weekend he will turn 1. A whole year behind him, and hopefully many more ahead.