A Tough Week

My apologies, dear reader, for the delinquency in blogging. It's been a bit of a tough week.

Let's start with my toe. For some odd reason, my toenail decided to burrow its little self in the wrong direction, resulting in an ingrown toenail. Seriously, am I 80? I delayed going to the doctor for a week, until I couldn't stand the pain any longer. It was waaaaay infected. He prescribed an antibiotic, which started just on the tail end of the course of antibiotic I had taken for my bronchitis, and instructed me to soak my toesies for 20 minutes twice a day. It began to get a little better, but now that the medication is finished, so has the getting better part. I can no longer wear any shoes but my Crocs, and that's without socks. Can we say "unprofessional?" I can only imagine what my coworkers and families think of my new fashion statement. I've had it, and finally got up the courage to make an appointment for the next step: removal. Of the nail, not the toe. The process, I am told, is to give several injections of numbing medications in the toe that's already in pain, and then cut out part of the nail. Like, permanently. I can't wait.

Then we move on to today, which was my last "free" day with Ollie. Next week I start my Monday through Friday. There will be an occasional day off with him, when I can take a day after working a weekend. But that will only come along once a month. The day started with Oliver in an unsettled whimper, apparently frustrated that he couldn't reach each of the toys dangling from his bouncy seat. As I tried to take a very brief shower, my cat joined in on the whining. After 10 minutes of putting myself together, I took the two unhappy creatures downstairs, and followed Liesel to the basement where her litter box and food reside. I just about threw up. Cat poop was smeared all over the basement's concrete. There was about a 10-foot arc of crap painted from the litter box to the stairs, where she finally finished her buisiness. Having no idea how to remove dried cat crap from concrete, I decided to walk - watching very carefully where I stepped- back upstairs and ignore what I saw.

A little later on, we visited my Grandpa at his assisted living facility. I just found out last night that he will be receiving hospice care starting this week. He has stopped eating and started sleeping for most of the day. When I saw him three weeks ago, he was smiling, eating, and admiring Oliver. Today, he didn't know me, and I barely recognized him as he had lost so much weight. I couldn't understand the words he was whispering, even though he was reaching out and clearly needing something. Which made me feel utterly helpless and sad.

In search of a walk and diversion, Oliver, my gimp toe and I headed to the zoo. Which was great. Although I had to show an old diver's license to match our zoo memebership card, because my current one has fallen out of my pocket somewhere in the city of Edina today. We then headed to Oliver's 4-month check-up, where my little guy got four shots, one at a time.

A couple of Bible verses have been floating through my head this week; I recently discovered that in two completely different chapters, Jesus says at least three times, "Be strong and courageous, for the Lord is with you." I am a believer that God reveals to me what he wants me to hear, if I'm willing to listen. So I'm trying to be better at taking a deep breath, and looking around, noticing the grace that is all around me. Today it took the form of at least three people at Byerly's, who, watching me carrying Oliver sans carseat or stroller, offered to get me a cart, bag my flowers, and open the door for us. It would have been nice if someone had noticed me lose my driver's license, but whatever. Grace appeared again in a breathtaking, hot pink sunset. It appeared in just about every person we saw today, who congratulated me as if I had just given birth to this 16 1/2 pound baby, and showered Oliver with compliments on his cuteness, smile, pumpkin hat, and sweet demeaner. It took the form of my Dad, who found it absurd that I would be driving myself to my doctor's appointment tomorrow, and promised to rearranged his whole schedule to drive me himself so that I wouldn't be alone or driving with a toe bloodied from an excavated nail.

Last night I was on-call, which means I receive pages from families of patients that need help managing medications, pain or symptoms. Occasionally we also receive a page from a family whose child has passed away. I was told late afternoon yesterday, just before I started my call shift, that one of our hospice children, a sweet 11-year-old who has struggled with cancer for several years, was actively dying, and I would likely get a page that night. It's hard to sleep, a phone at my bedside, waiting for a call where I would need to be compassionate, present, helpful, and very careful with an exceedingly fragile and profound situation. As I held and rocked Oliver to sleep, I thought of this child's family, who was also holding their son, at that same moment. I prayed for peace for his parents. I payed attention to how Oliver felt in my arms, heavy, warm, sweet-smelling. And healthy. How did I get to be so lucky to have this healthy child? I reflected then that the most obvious evidence of grace was right here, lying in my arms.