Ask Drew: Mommy

Marianne said...

Sure would like to hear from Danielle. Just thinking of you sweetie and wondering how you are doing?? Are you back to work full-time, part-time?? Are you getting rest? Are you sleeping at all!? How are you holding up?

Sorry to give such one-sided commentary....I don't think she's up for blogging quite yet.

It's definitely been difficult on both of us, but she's had the worst of it. Because of the dragged-out nature of Andrew's condition, it seems like a cycle through the first four stages of grief, without ever reaching acceptance. As much as we appreciate everyone's support, no one can really share the day-to-day emotional burden, which has only gotten worse during the last two weeks of sedation. Now that we were able to spend so much time with him awake and active, and are so familiar with his personality, it's that much harder to deal with him sedated and paralyzed. It's particularly difficult to see normal babies out and about or on TV. Perhaps we're hypersensitive, but it seems like there are babies everywhere...happy, smiling, and very much not confined to a bed, paralyzed, and fragile. (NOTE: Please do not treat us any differently if you have a baby, know a baby, want to talk about or share pictures of a baby, or need to reference a baby for any other reason. It may be difficult, but it's something we need to deal with and hiding from it won't help.)

School started three weeks ago, and D is teaching part-time. She teaches every other day, which means Monday/Wednesday/Friday this week, and Tuesday/Thursday next week. It's good to have something to do besides sit around and think, and is thus a good distraction. She likes the classes she's teaching and the schedule is great. However, it's also hard not to be distracted at work, as we have both discovered.

It's pretty obvious from my posting times that I don't sleep much, but D is trying to make her days off work for her. She sleeps in a bit when she can and takes naps when she can. She needs to, because it's impossible to get "normal" sleep when you have to wake up every few hours. She's been a real trouper and has filled the freezer to overflowing. Once she's awake, it's often hard to go back to sleep, especially if we've gotten less-than-happy news from Andrew's nurse.

I try to sleep in at least one day a week (usually Saturday) to catch up a bit on my missed opportunities....every other day, I'm up early to be on phone calls, at the hospital in the late afternoon, and working on emails and technical stuff all night. That's when I'm not traveling, which I'm doing more and more often in recent weeks. But enough about me.