Introducing…

Big Sis, Little Sib

 

I’m pregnant!  I’m actually 14 weeks pregnant, which means I passed my first trimester with flying colors.  I realize this is probably the worst kept secret in Texas.  I’ve told people who I’ve run into, but I was reluctant to make a big announcement on the internet until I knew everything was okay.   When I found out I was pregnant with Addison, I started shouting it from the rooftop as soon as the second line appeared on the test stick.  And I had a completely healthy and normal pregnancy with Addison.  I guess I’m more cautious this time around because I know just how lucky I was in my last pregnancy and I realize that there are so many things that could go wrong.  

I’m more than 1/3 of the way to having a baby and I truly don’t know where the time is going this pregnancy.  Even though I’m not working this time around, I’m probably busier than I’ve ever been.  I don’t sit at a desk all day counting down the minutes until the end of my pregnancy.  I’m chasing a 2-year-old and just trying to keep up.  I don’t have time to cry about morning sickness.  Addie doesn’t care if I get nauseous on the way out to her playdate.  So, I don’t really have time to care either.  

This pregnancy is starting out completely different from my last.  I feel more mentally stable this time.  I was an emotional wreck from day one right up until the end of my last pregnancy.  So, I’m not crying as much which.  One thing that is the same is how exhausted I’ve been.  I usually fall asleep during Addie’s nap every day and it really limits my productivity at home.  Every day I tell myself, “Oh, I feel good.  I won’t be napping today.  I’m going to go clean the bathroom.” And then Addie goes to bed and I sit down on the couch for a few minutes and the next thing I know an hour has passed and Addie is up from her nap.  I’m hoping my naps are exclusively a first trimester necessity.  

Addison is also getting excited about becoming a big sister. She wants a brother (“broveerrrrrr”).  She thinks it is so cool that she’ll be a big sister just like her cousin Bridget.  But when we talk about things like the baby sleeping in her crib, she doesn’t respond too well even though she’s excited about having a new big-girl room.  We’re working on it.  I can’t say I’m expecting an easy transition, but she’ll come around eventually.  Because she has to.  

We will find out the sex of the baby next month.  And I know everyone wonders this, but no, I don’t have a preference.  I would love for Addison to have a sister, because I have a sister and I think that relationship is pretty great.  But I would love to have a little boy too.  Although, I must admit, I’m afraid I wouldn’t know the first thing about parenting a little boy.  

 

Still Kickin’

Oliver is at the hospital today for his fifth Chemotherapy treatment.  He’s responding very well to the meds.  In fact, just hours after his initial Elspar injection and dose of CCNU I called Scott at work and said, “You’re going to think I’m crazy but Oliver’s lymphnodes are smaller.” and he said, “Yes, you’re crazy.” But they were shrinking.  And they shrunk even further the next day and within a week we couldn’t detect them at all.

We weren’t sure what to expect with going forward in treating Oliver.  We came to a point that we knew if we didn’t treat him, he would die.  We also knew that we didn’t want him sick and suffering.  We knew that chemotherapy may prolong his life, but we weren’t sure at what cost to him physically.  Ollie has more energy than he’s had in months.  He bounds out of bed in the morning – getting us up if we have the rare opportunity to sleep in – ready for his breakfast and a game of fetch.  I can’t count the number of times in a day he drops his ball at my feet.  He is always up for a walk or a trip to the park.  Besides his little limp, you wouldn’t know there was a thing wrong with this dog.  It’s ironic, really, that most people going through chemotherapy have such a terrible reaction to the treatment but my dog feels like a puppy again. 

Today Oliver is receiving his fifth dose of CCNU.  His oncologist called to let me know that his white blood cell count was a little low this morning but still in the treatable range.  She emphasized that she thought he looked great and was thrilled with his progress, but all I got out of the conversation was WHITE BLOOD CELL COUNT LOW.  She did say that most dogs will tolerate about six treatments and we’ll just have to see how he’s doing in two weeks.  We realize that we’re on borrowed time with Oliver but it’s good, quality time.  And seeing him chase Addie around the house with his tail wagging makes it all worth it.

 

Holiday Playdate

Yesterday, we hosted a holiday playdate for a small group of Addie’s friends.  They all happened to be girls which was purely coincidental.  The idea was to decorate Christmas cookies and do a little holiday-themed craft. On Tuesday Addie and I baked all of the cookies we would need for our party.  We made gingerbread men and cut out sugar cookies.  It took FOREVER.  Hours.  We spent the entire morning making these cookies and spent no time doing the other things we needed to do around the house like cleaning and going to the grocery store.   I couldn’t figure out why it was taking so long to bake cut-out cookies from a pre-made roll of dough.  Then my helper got bored and went in the other room to play.  The baking moved along quickly after that (but wasn’t nearly as much fun).

As I was setting up for our big cookie party, Scott took Addie out to the mall and I went next door to pick up a kid’s table my awesome neighbor was letting me borrow.  Since she lives four doors down, and I drove so I could easily transport the table and chairs, I was gone for no more than 3 minutes.  4 minutes max.  When I returned home I walked in to find Oliver feasting on Gingerbread men.  You know those cookies that took me hours to make?  Gone in seconds!  Luckily he didn’t get hold of the sugar cookies, though I suspect those were next on his list.  There was nothing to be done about it and I don’t like gingerbread anyway.

As soon as her friends arrived Addison ran into the kitchen and was ready to get down to business with the cookies.  I was hoping to visit with the Moms for a few minutes and have a cup of coffee but Addie had other plans.  Playdates are for the kids, right?

Whose idea was it to let six toddlers loose with frosting and sprinkles anyway?  I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen such a mess.  Next time, we’ll do this on a tarp.

Oliver had frosting in his fur and sprinkles in his eyebrows.  Addie had green feet from stepping on the sprinkles that covered the floor.  Little Sarah’s fingers looked like casts made from green sugar.  And Emma.  Sweet Emma, though her Mom came prepared with an apron, she managed to wipe her frosting covered hands on her shirt every time.  A few of the girls even ate their cookies.  Addie was not one of them – she was more into the sprinkles and frosting - but she did enjoy the decorating. 

After we finished with the cookies and made a few attempts at sweeping the floor, we called the girls back to the table to make some snowman frames.  This project was decidedly the less messy of the two.  It was a very fun day and we were glad to see our friends before everyone gets busy with the upcoming holiday week.  After our last friend left, Addie and Ollie both crashed despite all of the sugar.

 

The Deal

So, I told the internet that I was putting my dog to sleep and then I didn’t do it.  Internet, do you forgive me for lying to you?  I hope you will.  I still do need your good thoughts.

On Monday morning Scott made the dreaded phone call to our vet.  A phone call that only he could make.  I couldn’t make that call because if I had to say those words out loud it would sound exactly like this: “meep”.  And the person on the other end of the line would hang up on the mouse who keeps prank calling the office.  This is why we are perfect together, because he is my strength when I have none left.  He can do the things that I know I couldn’t do.  Sometimes I just feel like standing in the middle of the street in my pajamas and crying.  When I don’t think I can take one more beating from the universe he’s like, Of course you can, come on, put this mouth guard in and let’s get back in the ring. Together.  I’m sure I must lift him up in some way too, because he’s still here, I just can’t think of what that is right now.

Scott asked the vet to take a look at Oliver and told her he needed to schedule his euthanization.  The vet was all, “Well, would you like for your dog to live longer?”  And Scott was all, “Well of course  I want my dog to live longer.”  So,  he made arrangements for me to bring Oliver in later that afternoon. 

Now, before I talk about anything that happened at that appointment, I have to talk about something really dumb happened over the weekend.  I ran out of Oliver’s pain meds.  YES!  I let my terminally ill dog’s medicine run out and I did not re-fill it before the vet closed for the weekend.  Now, Ollie is taking a lot of meds.  I won’t bore you with the laundry list.  He happens to take this particular medicine twice a day and it happens to cost $45/oz.  Yes.  Forty-five dollars an OUNCE.  One ounce.  So we don’t exactly stock up on it at Sam’s Club.  Well, it was gone.  On Sunday afternoon I gave him the last of it which was about half of his normal dose.  Remember, Sunday morning is when he was doing bad, bad, bad and we finally decided that his time had come.  I told Scott I would get more medicine on Monday morning – just enough to get us through the few days we thought he had left.  Well Monday rolls around and, are you ready for this?  Oliver was doing better.  All morning long I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I was waiting for the pain to get debilitating because he had missed a dose (and a half) of his pain meds.  Instead, he wanted to play fetch.  Instead of laying on the floor like a lump, he wanted to chase Addie around the house and try to eat a banana out of her hand.  Seriously.  When I went to the vet that afternoon I told her about the lack of meds and how Oliver seemed to be feeling, because I didn’t think it was insignificant.  And neither did she.  So we scaled back to one dose of that liquid gold pain medicine. 

When Scott spoke to the vet earlier in the day she was telling him about a lymphoma treatment that they were doing at Gulf Coast Veterinary Specialists (GCVS).  You may remember them from all of my posts in January.  They treated Oliver after his stroke.  This cancer treatment is essentially one shot of chemotherapy that would shrink the lymph nodes and solve Oliver mobility issues, breathing issues and eating issues.  Of course, all temporarily.  We were wondering why she was just telling us this now  when she’s known for a month about Oliver’s Lymphoma.  Well, she had just learned about it that morning.  And I don’t even need to go into anything about how there are no coincidences.

That brings us to today.  Any if you’ve made it this far: BRAVO!  This morning, we packed up the kids and were out the door by 6:30 to see the oncologist.  I got a little teary walking into GCVS today, remembering all of those visits to hydrotherapy with Ollie riding on the stretcher, unable to walk.  And I was remembering the first time I didn’t have to call for a gurney to take him in.  Oliver walked in on his own and the staff cheered for him.  I also couldn’t help but think about how those were simpler times with Ollie. 

We met with Oliver’s oncologist (she’s lovely) and talked to her about his treatment options.  Today, we ended up getting that initial lymph node shrinking drug as well as a round of chemo.  Ollie hasn’t had any adverse reaction to them so far.  In fact, he came home hungry and wanted to play fetch.  Now, we wait to see how – or if – he responds.  We just wait.  So, are we doing chemo?   Have we committed to this treatment?  Honestly, I don’t know.  I don’t know how I feel about any of it.  We did today.  I don’t know if we’ll do it again.  I can’t think past today.  I can’t make plans for next month or even two weeks from now.  We’ll just enjoy the good days as they come and make the best of the bad ones.  But still, I’ll get to rub my dog’s belly tonight and two days ago, that wasn’t something I thought I would be able to do.  I’ll take it.

 

Teaching Moment

We wanted to prepare Addison for Oliver’s departure.  It’s wouldn’t be fair for her to walk into the house after a play date to find her best friend has disappeared.  Addie is a smart kid.  She picks up on nuances and knows something is amiss in our lives.  She came up to me yesterday while we were playing blocks on the living room floor, put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Mama sad.”  I thought that was a good opener to talk to her about why Mama is sad and what is going on with Oliver.

Things my 2-year-old does not understand:

• Death
• Euthanasia
• Cancer

Mercifully, she doesn’t understand all of those things.  I don’t want her to.  She doesn’t get that we don’t want to make this decision.  She also doesn’t understand that, if given the opportunity, we would move mountains to make it all better. 

What Addison can grasp is the concept of Oliver living somewhere else.  My goal in all of this is not to lie to my daughter, but to put things into terms that a two-year old can understand.  It’s not as easy as it sounds.  We sat down and told her that soon Oliver was not going to live with us anymore.  He was going to have to live with God in Heaven.  For once, in my life as a parent, I am glad I didn’t video tape this moment because the look on Addison’s face – the confusion, fear and disbelief that crossed over her - was one that I never want to see again.  Then she pointed to the door and said, “Oliver, car?”,  asking if he would be going for a ride somewhere.

Since God and Heaven are also concepts we haven’t yet covered in toddler teachings, we had to break it down even further.  We explained that Oliver is going to live in Heaven – up in the stars – where he will be happy and he’ll be able to chase his ball all day without getting tired.  The downside is that we won’t be able to see him anymore, but he will be up on a star looking down on us.  Anytime we miss him, we can go in the back yard and look up into the sky and wave to him on his star.  Addison was getting confused.  And a little upset.  I could tell she had questions but didn’t know how to articulate them.  I decided that was enough for the day.  Maybe I had gone too far.

Hours later as we were getting into our bedtime routine Addison pointed to the ceiling and said, “Mama, Oliver up high?  Star?”  And all I could do was tell her, ”Yes baby, Oliver will be up in the stars.  But for now, lets love him while he’s here with us.”