Everybody's Sick Chpt 32

OCTOBER 4, 2001
I don't feel all that great today, but then again neither does anyone else, Mark is still so sick he can barely get out of bed and Ronnie is coming down with what ever it is that he has. Normally all this illness would only be a miner inconvenience, but it does happen to be the day after a chemo treatment, and I feel like hell. I should be resting until it is time for me to drag myself out of bed and go to work but I can't, I have to get the girls to school. I wanted to keep Ronnie home, but no matter how sick she is she insists on going to school, considering how horrible 5th grade has been to her so far, I find it amazing. As I have said before, 10 years old is just too young to start middle school. On the plus side this school does isolate the 5th graders, for about 80% of their day they don't see the older kids. On the minus side, last year in 4th grade at the elementary school these kids were in one classroom for most of the day, they switched teachers for math and social studies only, there was a bathroom in every classroom and the lunch tables were assigned. Suddenly, these children are switching classrooms every 45 minutes, they have go down a hall to the girl's room and the lunch tables are controlled by the self-designated "cool kids." More than once Ronnie had to battle for the right just to be able to sit down at a table and eat her lunch.
I haven't even started ranting about my problems with the gym teachers, those former "cool kids" who now have the power to make any non-athletic child's life miserable. To be fare Ronnie did have one good gym teacher for most of the fifth grade. At first the teacher yelled at Ronnie for "not trying or tiring out to easily." When Ronnie told me about how she was being treated by the teacher I contacted the woman asked if she had reviewed Ronnie's blue card, you know the card that asked if a child had any disabilities.
I explained about the problems about Ronnie's bad feet and ankles, and asked the teacher what kinds of information (such as a note) form Ronnie's doctors the teacher needed to prove that there was a legitimate problem? She said my word was enough and that conversation solved the problem of gym class until that teacher was struck in the head with a shot-putt (I kid you not) and was out for the rest of the year. The man who took over the class was not as cooperative and has treated Ronnie as badly as he treated all the other non-athletic children in his care.
Ronnie has told me that she loves the freedom of walking down a hall and not being in line with a whole class and the teacher stopping every five minutes yelling at the class because a few kids are misbehaving. On the other hand the hallways are one of the few places where the teachers are no present. So it is in the hall where all retribution for some slight that happened in a class takes place. Did I mention that Ronnie had a stalker? He is another 5th grader that follows her all over the place, he is annoying, but harmless.
Middle School has been such a very unpleasant experience for Ronnie and if I hadn't gotten the cancer I probably would have pulled her out and homed schooled her this year, but I just wasn't up to it.
Leah on the other hand is having a great time, she likes her teacher and so do I and every thing seems to be going well for her except to day, because to day is picture day and Miss Fashion has to look perfect. In the last few days I have washed and ironed two or three different dresses. When she finally decided which dress she wanted to wear we discover that the dress was missing a button. So it was off to the store I went to find new buttons for the dress, I got lucky and found a match so I didn't have to replace all of the buttons. Then she changed her mind again. Remember she is only 7 years old, I can't wait until she is a teenager.
I normally don't indulged this kind of behavior, I reasonable, but not a push-over especially compared to some of the yuppie parents in this town. But I feel guilty because I haven't been able to give them the kind of love and attention that I use to. I am too tired to play with my daughters, I am even to tired to listen to them for long periods of time, something that girls seem to need. I have not been active in Leah's brownie troop, and Mark has been taking them too most or their activities and play-dates. So now I am spoiling my kids is silly ways, I polished Leah's nails even though her hands will not be in the picture and I let her…I don't believe this myself…wear lip gloss. Oh @#$% I've become a yuppie parent.
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Back in July when Diane organized the people cooking for us, she had more volunteers then there were days that we needed dinners, that meant that there were some people who wanted to cook who couldn't. So when I started my chemo treatments Diane asked me if we needed dinners again. I could have handled the cooking (I think) but why not? I told her to work it out so that we would get dinners delivered for five days after each chemo treatment. This arrangement worked out really well, I didn't have to cook and some people who wanted to help me could.
I am by nature a very private person, many times during my treatment and recovery I would have been happy just to be left alone, but the people around me seemed to need to be needed, and I under stood this. I know how good it feels when I bring bags of food to the food bank, or when I help cook a meal at a homeless shelter. People need to help, and although it is hard switching from the helper to the helpee I felt that it was important to sit back and except almost any offer that some one gave. The only ones that I turned down were the offers to clean my house that seemed just too invasive.
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I got through picture day just barley, the next day was just as bad. Mark was still sick, but he has to drag himself out of bed in order to write his sermon. His sermons run about 30 minutes long, and some statistics guy figured out that the average minister spends about one hour working (writing/researching/editing) for every minute that that he/she speaks. So Mark needs to work. All of his meetings were canceled for the week. Ronnie is so sick that she has agreed reluctantly to stay home. On Fridays, and I usually work from 10:00 am to 5:15pm but that day I worked 4 hours, that is all that I could handle. I wanted to be at work because unlike my house, at work I will not be around sick people. One of my biggest fears since starting chemo is germs. During chemo treatments many of your white blood cells are destroyed and your immune system does not work very well, that makes you vulnerable to illness. So I became so paranoid that I act like the love child of Howard Hughes and Michel Jackson. I wore the cloth gloves when I worked, at home I wore rubber gloves when I cleaned and not just for dishes, any cleaning, when I was up to it I clean my house like crazy.
I read somewhere that one of the dirtiest public places is the door handle in a public bathroom (not everyone washes their hands) so the article said to use a paper towel to open door to exit the bathroom. This is a practice that I still use to day. If you didn't know that I was under going chemo and you saw me in public you would have thought that I suffered for obsessive-compulsive-disorder. I did act a little weird, on the other hand I wanted to get though my treatments without getting any infections.
One of my co-workers bought a whole bunch of baby wipes for us to use at work, and she cleaned the phones that we use a few times each day. Another way of protecting me was that my co-workers waited on patrons who looked sick, keeping me away from germs. So, there I was trapped at my home with two sick people, trying to take care of them without touching them or breathing their air not an easy thing to do. By Saturday I was exhausted, Mark and Ronnie were felling better so I spent the day in bed, poor Leah, she has no one to play with thank goodness for VCRs.

October 8, 2001
We g0t an extended weekend because of Columbus Day which was good because we don't have to get up early on Monday and we all slept as much as we wanted. When I pictured my hair falling out I had images of standing in the shower and rubbing my hair to help it fall out. Not. Wet hair and hands don't mix, every time I touched my head all this hair stuck to my hands and was hard to wash off. I quickly realized that all I could do was to stand in the shower and let the action of the water remove some of the loose hair, it was working-for awhile. Did I mention that I like hot, I mean really hot showers? Well I do. I like the room warm also. One of the great things about this house is that both up-stairs bathroom have built-in heaters in them. With a flick of a switch warm air will cascade down from the ceiling and warm up the bathroom.
So, here I am standing in a warm shower, the water flowing and my hair sliding down my back when I started to feel faint. I immediately go out of the shower and sat down, I didn't feel any better, I managed to get dressed, (even as I was passing-out modesty prevailed) and stepped out into the hall. I was hit with a temperature drop of over fifteen degrees it helped wake me a little, I slowly staggered down the hall frequently sliding against the wall.
"Mark" I whispered, just loudly enough for him to here.
"WHAT!" can a very annoyed reply.
"Help" my whisper getting softer. I made it to the bedroom and fell face down on the bed. I was drifting in and out of conscious. The help worked, he can running into the bedroom.
What he saw was his wife lying face down on the bed, my face was very white, and my body was covered in sweat, he came over to me and touched my back, it was ice cold, he was scared to death and wanted to call 911. I told him believe it or not I was feeling better than I did in the bathroom and to give it a few minutes. He put a blanket on me.
"I'm still cold" I mumbled, so he put another blanket on top, slowly I warmed up and started to feel better. With in a hour I was almost normal. We didn't call the hospital because I knew that they would want me to come in and the girls were home from school. Remembering how frighten Leah was when she came with me to the blood bank, I just couldn't put her through another trip to the hospital.
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October 9 2001
After we got the girls to school I called Dr. O’Hara and told her what had happened to me, my luck she took the day off. She has some nerve trying to have a personal life, anyway the receptionist transferred me to Eva, and just as I excepted she told me to come in to the hospital. Mark drove me there and we saw something that we had never seen before-the parking lot was full, there was nowhere to park. I figured that this would not take long so I suggested to Mark that he go and have lunch at the local Friendly's and while he is there could he get me a chocolate milk shake (I don't understand why I am gaining weight). Then just wait out in the front of the cancer center. He liked the idea and off he went.
Nothing ever goes as planed, I check in and have my blood tested and waited…and waited…and waited…while poor Mark was out in front circling the cancer center because the valet boys didn't like him hanging around their turf. More waiting…finely Eva came over to me and told me that every thing looked fine, she wasn't sure why I somewhat black-out; maybe it was because of how hot the room was or maybe it was because I (as we discovered in talking) didn't take all of my medicine. Well, I felt fine so I stopped taking the pills. I left with the instructions to take all of my medicine as instructed and keep the bathroom at a temperature that is not sonorous with the tropics.