Second wind

For the tired souls

The only poems I’ve ever memorized are “Sick” by Shel Silverstein and a poem about a bunch of different dogs that the poet describes being all around his house. I feel like this makes sense.

I recited the poem, “Sick,” to my four-year-old daughter the other day. Because at the end the little girl realizes it’s Saturday and everything changes. The girl gets a burst of energy, the kind she’s been waiting for.

My daughter has seen a lot of sick. Mostly her baby brother. Sometimes Mama and Daddy because we haven’t slept in three years (not even an exaggeration).

She sometimes asks me why she doesn’t go to the doctor. No nose cannula for her? Feeding tube? Oxygen?

Sammy doesn’t have a feeding tube now and you wouldn’t guess he had one for a short while, but when he did, his big sister (by only 16 months!) would comfort him, bring him a stuffie, and then later put a feeding tube through the nose of her dog or cat. Totally normal childhood, right?

If you think that’s a lot, listen. Her stuffed animals have been through it.

I’ll enter a room, and on stage right there will be kitties in desperate need of a heart surgery (thanks to two heart surgeries for Sammy, this is an easy game to play). Stage left will be dogs who just need a regular old vet, AKA Lu, who says one day she will be a “pet doctor,” “dancer,” and/or “dog trainer.” I like to think of her dancing her way through vet school as she trains dogs on the side. It could happen.

Today, she asked me to “keep Sammy awake” until she got home from preschool, so she could play with him before he napped.

Don’t worry, he’s his mother’s son, and almost always gets a second wind.

She asks me what a second wind is, and I realize, aren’t phrases funny?

Today I’m under the weather. Fitting for a post about under the weather animals who mimic a brother who has had lots of “sick days,” but definitely hardly ever called in sick, if you know what I mean.

Nothing stops Sammy, until it does.

A few DAYS after heart surgery my five month old baby looked better than most of us do after a long Wednesday.

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This last June knocked him down hard. It was by far the worst inpatient stay yet and that’s saying something. Hello, Christmas Day in the hospital two years ago. Actually, hello nearly every holiday in the hospital that year.

Somehow this hospital visit last June turned my wild second wind boy into a drowsy and could hardly move boy, who ended up sicker than ever with an illness most people have never even heard of. Or can pronounce. Or spell.

No one knew what was going on and I still can’t tell you much for sure except there were way too many night docs (although my favorite) involved in his several week summer hospital visit. You know it’s bad when you get to know night docs.

I am like Sammy in that I almost always get a second wind. In fact, I have a small one right now. I’m in bed, writing. I’m in bed but not sleeping. Story of Sammy’s life.

For some reason I’m thinking tonight about his visit in June.

We were pretty upset that he was so sick and things kept happening that made me uncomfortable to leave him, so I hung around and definitely had some forced second and third and forth winds to stay awake to be there for him and try and understand what was happening.

Like I said, there was a night doc I liked, and so I’d always ask for him to come by our room when he was working. Sometimes the nurse would send in a resident instead. No shade to residents, but I wanted to speak to one specific attending doctor. Even though it wasn’t customary for the main floor docs to come around room to room in the late hours of the night unless something was very wrong, this doctor came.

I had met him when Sammy’s heart rate started being scary low and the way he talked to me was different than the other doctors during that stay. He told me he was a dad first and it showed. He never looked at me like I was nuts for asking a million questions and being worried and trying to scheme with him (because I trusted him) how to get Sammy food sooner than later. Sammy was on gut rest but he was not doing great. And this doctor knew it.

He even went so far as to tell me that their kiddo had an illness and was hospitalized one time (one time, I thought, what a dream!), and his wife had been BESIDE herself. Sounded familiar.

What I know to be true: for pretty much any mom (or dad), a hospital visit is a hospital visit is a hospital visit. No matter how many you have, there’s a common thread. It is not easy.

I was grateful for the empathy.

Then, one night when he came by to check on Sammy (and scared mom), he told me something I get annoyed at most people saying to me when my kid is lying in a hospital bed.

He told me to go home. Not for all the nights, he said. But tonight. My first thought was, “Do you know that my home is two hours away and I have not been there since the start of this madness and what are we on, day 12? Night 12? Home is Ronald McDonald house and I’m not going home.”

He said it again. Kindly. Almost sadly. He probably thought I wouldn’t listen to him.

“Go watch a silly tv show with your husband.”

I didn’t want to. And I always want to. Right now we’re suckers for Animal Control and St. Dennis Medical (irony). Back then, I couldn’t bring myself to separate from the ridiculousness of the hospital because it seemed like when I did something bad would happen.

But a sitcom is what, 30 minutes?

I could do it….

…I did it.

It’s funny thinking about how even going to dinner and trying not to talk about the hospital was very difficult, but we tried it. Of course, the first time we tried it we got a call right when the Thai food came that our son was in fact more than just tired and imaging had detected a mystery illness.

Check, please?

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Back to second winds for a minute.

There’s nothing like a bad hospital stay to train yourself (falsely) that you must never let your guard down, that you must live under a constant wave of a second wind, and not the good kind. Not the kind that gets me back into writing, despite not feeling good, because darn darkness, my old friend, you’re not going to win.

I’m talking about the second wind that sometimes happens to us and tells us we have to keep going in the same direction at all costs, even if it’s hurting us.

I’m a huge fan of keeping going, and I’d do what I did with Sammy in the hospital again in a second, but I do sort of wonder where I’d be if I hadn’t chosen some of those breaks. Albeit distracted breaks where I still had one eye on the creepy camera that shows you your kid even when you’re away. But still. My husband and I, we had a couple fun dinners during those weeks. I’m not talking about the Thai restaurant. Pad Thai, you’re ruined for me! Just kidding.

We went to a fun casual restaurant once when we knew Sammy had a nice nurse or sitter for a while. As a side note: he was sick enough to have a sitter with him when we weren’t there so he was never truly alone. We had a sitter named Bless for a few nights and seriously, her name fit the profile. I was blessed. I asked her if she would just stare at him (the way an over-the-top mom would) and not do anything else all night. I didn’t even ask for that the night he had open-heart surgery! So I was freaked. It didn’t hurt to ask. When I checked on him later on the camera, I could see Bless. She was staring at him. Just watching him peacefully. I’ll never get over that.

I’m for second winds but sometimes we all need a break. It was few and far between but I did try and let myself have a second wind in the form of a silly show. Thank you to the introverted night docs wearing sweat pants and tennis shoes for your kind recommendations to us drowning mothers.

I’m finally, finally writing, and I’ll make myself go to sleep in a minute. I wanted this second wind to be about joy and remembering and focusing on this moment. A second wind that truly wakes me up and energizes me is one that reminds me why I’m doing all this anyway.

It’s a long game. It really is. There will be days and nights when all we can do is rehearse all the terrible things that are going on in the world, in our worlds. Which makes sense. It can be a lot. I’m not one to wrap it all in a bow. I’ve wept for all my sweet baby has gone through and all the world has gone through, too. But right now, all I can do is remind myself, remind you, that we’re still here. That the sun will rise tomorrow and it’s a new day. A second wind will come for our exhausted hearts and bodies, sometimes not the kind we want, but sometimes the kind we need. Give yourself time, and breaks, and silly shows. By God’s grace, we’re going to make it.