Another ER Visit and the Angry Me

This morning's journal entry. I share not because I'm still feeling this way, (insert my testimony of the power writing, food, chocolate, and time.) but because I've been asked if I ever get angry. It's a good question. Anger is a fair and understandable reaction to pain, and while my primary emotional reaction to all this is sadness (you've read that here before), I do have other moments as well. Behold: 

"Caleb’s slight runny nose started Saturday morning. Barely. Sunday, a little more. Sunday afternoon he wheezed a little bit at dinner. We ate quickly and took him home to his inhaler. One dose of albuterol allowed him to sleep, but he woke up panicking an hour later. Wouldn’t take the albuterol. Kept pushing the inhaler away. At one point I had his torso squeezed between my legs while my hands and arms cradled his face, trying to get the medicine in him. He screamed, struggled, kept it off his face. Frustrated, I called Mike. He came and managed to calm Caleb enough for the inhaler. I read him a book, apologized for being rough earlier. He apologized for hitting and quietly said “You were squeezing me so hard”

 

I hate getting blamed for what his lungs are doing to him. 

 

But I can’t forget his tender voice, apologizing to me between continuous wheezes and gasps as he tries to breathe. Even in his worst panic, he’s so humble and good.

 

The second dose still didn’t help. Soooooo ANOTHER ER trip. Michael spent 3 hours there, and the doctors gave Caleb the same steroid that Hyrum just finished taking. We might later need a sign in our home saying “Dexamethesone: Our Family Hero”. The doctors also assured him that based on his 3-4 croup run-ins this year and the breathing they heard, Caleb does NOT have asthma like we were previously told. 

 

So that’s great. Now we have some other medical mystery to unravel if we want to JUST KEEP OUR KIDS ALIVE.

 

Why does that have to be so hard? What are we doing WRONG?! Why does this FEEL so wrong?? Isn’t parenting supposed to be more than just keeping your kids from leaping into an early grave?! If I can’t even keep them safe, then what am I even doing here?! 

 

And after all that stupid medical hustle and bustle, do I even have a familiar place to being them home to? No. We live in an immunocompromised community and had to hurriedly leave the apartment for my aunt’s house. (Which, despite my rage vomit here, I recognize as a total blessing. If she wasn’t here we would be in a hotel. Her home is such a great place for us to be) We came with one half-emptied diaper bag and my kids had to wander around half naked the next morning while I arranged to pick up their clothes. They were just starting to learn how to sleep in that new place… and now we’ll be here for a week and then there for a week and then maybe Utah for a week and then who knows what. 

 

How am I supposed to parent under these conditions?? Why should I attempt to do something so HARD if it’s just going to be undermined by another disaster in the next three days? Why?!!! Why should I even try?!"

For several minutes after writing that, I considered what item I would most like to drop kick into the sky. Nothing living, of course. Not a ball- too cliche. Something that would explode when I kicked it would be a bonus... But I never quite settled on the right thing. I'll go on a run later today and will feel quite impressed with myself after (my rage runs are always my best). Then I'll give myself a couple slow days to nurse Caleb back to health and adopt some sense of purpose again as this powerlessness passes. 

At least, that's the plan for now. I may decide to live out the rest of my days just kicking random items all the time. We'll see.