My Tough Kid

Every now and then, amongst the chaotic days of picky eating, tantrums and non-stop moving, emerges a day when Toby shows us that he really is one tough kid.  Such a day occurred last week when we took him to my office for his 15-month shots.   (Don’t do the math.  Please.)

 

For those of you who DID the math, we were a tad on the late side so instead of waiting for an appointment we just decided to take him into my office and have Mel (our nurse) do the shots. 

 

As always, I was nervous.  I don’t know WHY seeing it’s my JOB to give kids shots. But watching Toby get his makes me feel nauseous.  So we have developed a great system.  Rob takes him to the appointment, goes in with him, holds him for his shots and then I come in at the last minute and give him an it’s-all-better-hug. Works perfectly.  The kid loves me.

 

So this time I was sitting at my desk pretending to do paperwork just WAITING for the wailing to start (which is my cue to come in with the it’s-all-better-hug) when I heard some clapping and some laughing from the room and then Mel came out --smiling.  And then Toby and Rob came out—SMILING.

 

Apparently, my tough kid had sat there quietly throughout the entire thing.  He WATCHED Mel as she plunged the first needle into his little arm and then, without batting an eye, watched again as the second needle went in.  In fact my motherly it’s-all-better-hug was REJECTED by my tough kid as he huffed and puffed to me that he had SOMETHING to SHOW me.  Very calmly, with his non-immunized arm he pointed to his now-band-aid covered injected arm; SOMEONE had put BANDAIDS on it.  The nerve.  He was NOT impressed.

 

After apologizing to him for agreeing to let someone plaster him in band-aids and telling him that he was indeed a very brave boy, I convinced him that an it’s-all-better-hug was still a good idea.  And it DID make me feel better.

 

After they’d left I turned to Mel (who, for the past few months, has endured my daily lamentations about the constant uncooperativeness of my son) and shrugged my shoulders.  Mel responded with a pat on the back, “They always make a liar out of us.”

The Goose Party

I’ve just come in from an hour of picking up goose shit. Again.

I don’t like to swear in my blog, but that truly is the most fitting word for the finely aged 2 week old crap that is carpeting our lawn. Being away for two weeks was CLEARLY an invitation to the entire goose population of Georgian Triangle to camp out on our lawn. All two acres of it. I know I’m prone to exaggeration, but this isn’t just 3 or 4 geese who deposited their goods around the water’s edge; the poop extends all the way to the front yard. In fact, it’s so extensive, I wonder if they stopped to suntan on the deck and enjoy a few beers in the hottub between mouthfuls of grass.

The purpose of this post is not to complain (can you tell?) but more importantly to ask if ANYONE has any ADVICE on how to crash the giant GOOSEPARTY that’s taking place in our back yard.

We both have our own techniques - -I run after them swirling my hands in the air and yelling “HALALALALALWOOOOLOOOLALALALAL GET OFF MY LAWN YOU STUPID GEESEE!!!!” at the top of my lungs and Rob grabs a handful of pebbles and throws them at them.

At first, I have to admit, I liked my technique better. As much as I disliked our new 50 pets, I have a soft spot for animals and found myself cringing every time Rob launched a pebble at them. Now, after a week of picking up goose shit by the bagfuls and still not noticing much of a difference, I find myself cheering, “Aim for the babies! Aim for the babies!”

(Fellow animal lovers – fear not. We ARE still just at he “pebbles” stage and haven’t actually hit one yet. We are practicing the art of persuasion, not brutality…)

Do I regret my two weeks away? Not on your life…but I DO find myself questioning the decision to live in the middle of nowhere and give birth a son who puts anything and everything into his mouth.

Nuff said.

Suggestions are welcome!!!!

Nasal Peek-a-Boo

...cause when you play it the REAL way you can't see your opponent...

Genius.

Hugs

One of the neatest things you get to witness when you watch your child grow up is those moments when learning occurs right before your eyes.

 

 Tonight, it happened at bedtime.  We were reading this book he has called “Hug”.  There is no text to the story, just a series of pictures of a little monkey watching various animals hug one another – giraffes, hippos, snakes, lions etc.  Realizing he is alone with no other monkey to hug, he walks around sadly, saying “Hug”.   EVENTUALLY, after a lot of lamenting about hugs, his mother appears with outstretched arms saying, “BOBO!”  and on the next page he runs to her and exclaims, “MOMMY!” and then on the next page they hug.  It’s a simple story and for some reason it’s one of Toby’s favourites.

 

Tonight as we read it we got to a standstill at the page where the Mommy appears.  We stopped there for a minute as I explained that it was the mommy monkey who was excited to see Bobo. He then flipped to the page where Bobo runs to his mommy and paused there for more explanation. And then he flipped back to the page where she first appears.  Back and forth he went and I alternated between saying, “mommy!” and “Bobo!” until FINALLY he pulled his milk bottle out of his mouth, pointed to the mommy and very softly, yet definitively announced, “Mama.”

 

He then turned the page and pointed to Bobo and said, “Dada”.  Then (FINALLY) we moved on to the last page where they hugged and Toby clapped his hands and then turned and gave me a big hug.

 

I guess this whole time he’d been trying to figure out who this “Bobo” character was and finally realized that it must just be a mommy and a daddy hugging, because that’s what mommies and daddies do and that’s why it’s a happy ending.

White Pants update...

OK, now I don’t want to BELABOUR the point or anything but I have to give you an update on day #2 of the conference.

 

I wore black pants.  And a pink top.  No white to be seen.  And it was a good thing, too, because today they had bagged MANGO Silli Fruit.  In juice.

 

I was just about feeling good about myself again when I spotted something that made my heart stop.

 

At the conference there was a pregnant lady.  And not just any pregnant lady -- I’m talking ready-to-pop-sitting-by-the-exit-I-could-go-any-time-now-waddle-waddle-pregannt lady.

 

And GUESS what she was wearing?

 

White pants.

 

What PREGNANT lady wears white pants??? ESPECIALLY at a conference that serves various types of SILLI fruit in JUICE?  What a show off.  I mean, that’s just SILLI.  Did she REALLY think she wasn’t going to sneeze or cough or laugh or tip over on the grass at any point during the day?

 

I just sat back in awe.  This is what conferences are all about….

White Pants - Take 2

Last week, after work one day, when I was feeling particularly good about life, I bought something utterly extravagant, impractical and uncharacteristic for me : white pants.

 

I’ve TRIED to wear white pants before, but my clumsy fataslistic ways have always stained them before I’ve gotten the chance to wear them a second time.  And not just a drop of something here or there- - last time, wearing my brand new white cargo capris I proudly met Care for a walk and we decided to get a coffee for the road.  I don’t even know how it happened but somehow from the counter to the exit I had managed to SOAK my ENTIRE left leg of my brand new cargo capris with hot black Starbucks coffee.  The pants never recovered.

 

So it was quite surprising that, less than a year later, I found myself in the dressing room of some nice respectable store, ooohing over white capris again.  These weren’t even CARGO capris.  They were FANCY material ones with a cuff on the bottom.  Cool people capris.  Just wearing them in the store made me feel crisp and un-clumsy.  Perhaps I liked them for the innocent way they disguised my clumsy ways with their cleanliness….I decided to give it a go.  I could be careful.  I could pull this off….

 

Monday morning I put my new image to the test.  It was day 1 of the palliative care conference in Hamilton where NO ONE knew me OR the previous Starbucks incident.  The first obstacle was my late white pants’ nemesis : The morning coffee.  But I outsmarted myself and put my jacket over my lap while I drank my coffee.  One point for me.

 

The next obstacle was the snack at break time : juice, oranges and muffins.  I passed on the oranges.  And the juice.  And you never know with muffins so I held back on those as well.  Good restrain, Lyss- - NOW you’re acting like a true white-pants-wearer.  During the second half of the morning, though, my stomach started to rebel and its loud noises drew attention to various strangers around me.  So by the second morning break I was ready to try anything.  Anything being….bagged CHERRIES in JUICE.

 

Are you KIDDING me? I ‘d never even HEARD of bagged cherries in juice.  And the brand name of these BAGGED CHERRIES IN JUICE was Silli Fruit.  No, that’s not a typo - -the name was actually spelled SILLI FRUIT.  I LOATHE companies that find it cutesie to pretend they’re idiots who don’t know how to spell common words in the English language.  Loathe them.  ALMOST as much as I loathe conferences that only serve you Silli Fruit Bagged Cherries in JUICE for the mid morning snack.

 

But still, I was not to be deterred.  I confidently picked up a bag of those damn Silli Cherries IN JUICE and a huge WAD of napkins and a PLATE and a FORK and I marched them over to the nearest table and opened the bag.

 

They were not joking about the juice.

 

Thankfully, I was well armed with napkins.  I arranged about 10 of them over my lap in layers and put the plate on the OTHER side of the huge round table and one by one rescued the large cherries from the horrifically red staining juice and plopped them into my mouth in quick succession with my fork.

 

After the 3^rd cherry was down and my pants were still white under the safety net of napkins, I decided I’d pushed my luck far enough and that would have to suffice.  I gingerly lifted up the plate and, extending my arms as FAR as they would go, walked over to the garbage to dispose of the leftover cherries and JUICE.

 

Putting the plate away, I wiped my hands in pure delight before turning to see an entire room of people smirking at me.  Speaking for the crowd, one lady touched my arm and said, “You did very well with your white pants, dear.” 

 

Take home message : although some days I may be able to wear the pants,  it doesn’t mean I can necessarily act the part.

My privilege

I am sometimes asked what it is about palliative care that I love.  And today was one of those days that told me exactly what.

After months of organizing, planning, groveling and paperwork I am fortunate to have been able to take 2 weeks away from my practice and home to do some retraining in Palliative care.  (Thanks to fantastic friends, parents, colleagues, in-laws, neighbours and my ever-supportive husband who have all pitched in to make this happen…) I am only 5 days in and already it has been a life-changing experience.

I don’t usually talk about patients on my blog but I was so touched today that I can’t resist.  

Somewhere in a hospital in Hamilton lies a little old lady who, about a month ago, was busy sunning herself in Florida shortly after celebrating her 58^th wedding anniversary.  Today, we told her she was dying.  Quickly.

As we hovered around her checking her urine output and adjusting her IV dose, we discussed her pathology results, her electrolyte balance, her code status and a multitude of other complicated medical-jargon-infused-topics.  We hadn’t told her the grim news yet, but suddenly she raised her arm and grabbed for her husband’s hand.

She couldn’t muster more than a whisper and her husband couldn’t hear anything softer than a shout.  And as she spoke we all stopped and leaned in to hear what she was about to ask,

“Who is this for?” she asked us.  We paused further to listen.  “Is this all for me or for you?”

“It’s for you, of course.  We’re here for you - all of us.  We want to make you comfortable.  We want to help you as best we can. What can we do to make this better for you?”

She wasn’t worried about pain or suffering.  She was only worried about him.

We turned to Henry.  “He’s in good hands,” we reassured her.  “He’ll be OK.” But the tears on his face told us differently.   Without prompting he spoke for the first time in his slow, gravelly voice, “I was supposed to go first.” Shaking his head he added, “all I want is for her to be comfortable.

I can almost guarantee that they hadn’t heard what the other had said.  But as we let their quiet words sink in, they smiled at one another through the tears and we could all see that they understood.

“We will,” we said.  We rubbed his back.  We held her hand.  We promised peace and comfort to both of them.   

Dying is the most intimate process that we go through, and being asked to be a part of it with families is the greatest privilege that I know.  Having had this opportunity to learn the words and skills to make a difference for them is a gift.  That’s why I do palliative care.