onward and upward

Going to Children's Hospital with your robustly healthy kid is a humbling thing.

Shout and I spent a few hours in the Hematology/Oncology Clinic at Children's Hospital on Friday.

If you're ever feeling sorry for yourself or your kid, take a trip to the waiting room at the HOC. You will start counting your blessings really fast.

I feel guilty having a healthy child, flitting around, checking out the toys and making trips to the art room. A child who isn't in a wheelchair. Who has all her hair. Who doesn't have an infusion port.

At the same time, I feel so very grateful. Because while at times, keeping up with all of Shout's issues is stressful and overwhelming, when looking at the bigger picture... of what these other parents go through... it's really a piece of cake. Some of it has big globs of yummy icing, and some of it is kind of crumbly and dry. But it's cake. All of it.

The Doctors Vampire were great. They met all my stringent criteria. They had read the file, done some research, answered my questions and had the right balance of laid back and aggressive.

Things got a little awkward when they started asking for REALLY SPECIFIC details about MY history of bleeding. Including REALLY personal things like how much menstrual bleeding I have, which could be quantified by how many tampons I use in a month (Dr. V: "Like a whole box?" Me: "Well, a Costco-sized box or CVS-sized?") And just, you know... GAH! It's all apparently relevant... we'll see.

And can I just say, internet, if you have a kid who stabs herself in the finger and bleeds like a mofo and you take her in to get it checked out... COUNT YOUR TAMPONS FIRST, OK? Because, seriously, I have NO IDEA how many tampons I use per month. BUT YOU WILL NEED TO KNOW THIS.

After we were done with the doctors, they took NINE VIALS OF BLOOD from her. (Seriously, I thought *I* was going to pass out.) And then we headed off to the Camp Stimey field trip to the National Building Museum. (Post about that to come.)

Shout was crying out in her sleep last night, so I went and checked on her. I breathed in her sweet summer smell, chlorine and sunshine. I remembered the many nights I lay awake on the floor next to her crib when she was a baby because in the dark of the night, I was afraid. I felt like I could never be sure she was going to be ok. But if I lay close enough, I could protect her. (From what? I don't know. That laying on the floor stuff was more for me than for her.)

We are so very lucky that we have a healthier child in her than we ever expected. But a little fear is always there.

It never occurred to me until that very moment of tucking her in that for a kid who is at risk (a remote but terrifying risk) of having her aorta dissect and cause a fatal bleed, that a bleeding disorder, even a mild one, is probably not a good thing.

So I scootched her little body over and snuggled in next to her. I can't protect her from everything. All I can do is take care of her the best I know how. But laying down next to her and keeping watch through the night... that part makes me feel better.

(Photo by Samantha Fein via Flickr)