Adventures On the Toilet Train

To anyone who ever became frustrated with toilet training (or the thought of toilet training) a small boy: take heart…you are not alone.  In fact, to encourage you, I’ve made a list of some of the recent and real sentences that have come from my 3 year old son while in the other side of the bathroom door.

“Mom, I fell in the toilet again!”

“Mom, I didn’t fall in the toilet again!”

“Mom, I decided to put the toilet paper in the sink before I wiped myself.”

“Mom, why does it [body part] look like this?”

“Mom, I didn’t mean to pee all over the floor, really, I didn’t.”

“Mom, I stuck my foot in the toilet!”

“Mom, Karsten’s in here too and he just stuck his hand in the toilet!”

“Mom, yes, you really do have to take off all your clothes before you go potty.”

“Mom, I broke your magazine.”

“Mom, I broke the toilet seat.”

“Look Mom!  I can hold the toilet paper with my toes.”

On a completely unrelated note, I’m thinking of writing a post on bathroom cleaners.

 

Of Fish and Heroes…

In the middle of our whole central line drama, we had some Halloween fun!

Also, because I haven’t blogged in days, I need to tell you that Friday, the 2nd of November, Chase left the hospital (by ambulance…he was so excited!) for radiation and then after radiation, he returned to go directly into a central line surgery.  He is now the proud owner of his FOURTH access line and I have to start every phone call to his team with “Hi, it’s Ellie. Chase’s central line is fine.”

Here are some pictures of our October 31st …

The Super Hero and The Fish (Incidentally, The Fish was annoyed as all get out with his costume. If one year old facial expressions are to be trusted, The Fish felt like A Clown.)
The Fish drowned his costume angst in a deep dish pizza and felt all better…
The Princess braved isolation to see a super hero of another sort…
The Mommy got to see the Princess, Superhero, and Fish (or Crab)…
…and Chase dressed up as Spiderman because he spends every other day being Superman. (note: only his arms are in his costume because he was hooked up to all sorts of things)

Moment by Moment…

Windowsill Or IV?

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Late this morning, I sat on a deep windowsill overlooking a crisp Fall city day and the beautiful lake. On my lap was snuggled a sweet and cuddly bald boy and we were watching a show on the iPad. I sipped my Starbucks americano and thought: “Wow, what a perfect moment. I am so blessed.” It was very like a movie scene…all lovely and right.

The truth is that I was sitting on that sill with my bald boy because he had to be out of the bed so that they could change the bloody sheets – a side effect of his last good IV site giving out and leaking all over. We were watching a movie to distract him from his bruised, battered, and swollen arms, and I was drinking coffee because I’d been up half the night after the bald boy pulled his central line out of his chest (in his sleep) and we had walked through the real-life bad dream of them telling us to keep him flat to guard against an embolism and helping to hold him perfectly still as he screamed and strained against the multiple, bloody attempts to place an IV so that he could continue his medicines and nutrition through the night.

My apologies for the graphic description. It was an intense night.

I guess my point in this is perspective.

There is the bruised, screaming child with the failed IV and there is the coffee and snuggling on the window sill. Both have been my recent reality and neither have cancelled the other out. But in this moment, there was grace given to see the joy.

“…the joy of The Lord is my strength.” Nehemiah 8:10

Choosing joy on a windowsill…

Moment by moment.

Day Two

Radiation day #2 started at the radiation building, and then due to a fever, moved to the outpatient oncology office, and then to the local ER, and then to an inpatient room, and then discharged from the local hospital to the special transport team, and finally, taken “sirens and lights” to Chase’s hospital.

Waiting in the oncology office after radiation

My apologies for the run-on sentence.  It was a run-on day.  Because of the fever, radiation is currently suspended.

Posing with some members of his spectacular transport team …headed for “his hospital”

Stay tuned for Day #3…

Moment by moment.

Day One: A Reflection

With his backpack and IV bag preparing to leave in the early morning…

One day down, twenty-nine more to go…

I’ve mentioned before how very much I hate separating from Chase before a procedure and today was no exception.  I left my unconscious child in a full body mold in the middle of a huge radiation machine, turned my back, and walked away.  With this heavy on me, I cried the whole way back down the hall (much to the chagrin of the nurse escorting me, I’m sure…).

Snug on the ride home; sleeping off the anesthesia

This entire radiation decision feels like a step down the path of destruction.  The doctors (and we with them) must tear and ravage his body with everything there is in the hope of once and for all eradicating this terrible thing that is greater still than the near deathly salvation they’ll put him through.

And yet…

I thought again today about the words of Psalm 139 and realized, no, this is not a road to destruction, but to perfection!

I thought I had a healthy and perfect baby boy one December afternoon.  I still remember the first pink tinge of life effusing his skin as they laid him in my arms.  How beautiful he was.

And yet…

My mind cannot fully grasp this, yet my heart cries out that it is true: that December afternoon was but the beginning of a journey to perfection.  Chase is only now becoming who his loving Heavenly Father desires him to be!

We don’t know now.  But one day we will.

So we will endure that we may be complete.  Lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)

Moment by moment.

Rubbing lotion on his head and back to protect against burns