Please, tomorrow

Today has been a long day, of cleaning, stress, packing, moving stuff, interacting with Toronto’s Finest, and general racing around. We are still on track for discharge tomorrow and I’m praying fiercely that nothing will prevent us from actually going.

Beanie and I had an early morning after another sleepless hospital night. I felt pretty cranky but tried not to get too upset with the early hour. I convinced him to order a waffle from Meal Train rather than an English muffin. (He has eaten an English muffin for every meal for days now.) He had a few bites of the waffle but lost interest in it and started demanding his new favourite. Tears ensued. I called Meal Train again and explained the situation, and the woman I spoke with agreed  to send an English muffin up, rather grudgingly I might add. I don’t know where the Meal Train people are, but it must be in some subterranean dungeon far away from the light of day, judging by the general air of disinterest and cantankerousness they generally emit.

When second breakfast arrived, Beanie was most pleased and ate a good portion of it. We set up camp on our play mats and did puzzles and made rockets. I had a longish meeting with the team during rounds and learned a few things that were a bit distressing, but I’m choosing to focus on positives today. After this meeting I had to fly to the house where I met up with Auntie Loz and we did a whirlwind clean of the downstairs. Actually, she cleaned and I put various things of Gavin’s away and attempted to do laundry. I am having a hard time making my washer understand that I want it to launder my clothing, not just sit there in sullen silence.

I had to head back to hospital later in the afternoon to meet the pharmacist and go over the many side-effects of Gavin’s meds. On my way back, I was somewhat distracted and realized that I was being pulled over by the police. I quickly reviewed what I had been doing for the past few minutes and couldn’t come up with anything illegal. Talking on my phone? Had I run a red? The pleasant young officer informed me that my license plate sticker had expired. Three months ago. Oh. I started to explain to him why I had neglected to do this and found myself suddenly crying. It seems I cannot say the words, My son is in the hospital with cancer to a perfect stranger without losing it. He was kind enough to let me off with a warning. I found myself sitting in my car at the side of the road, tears streaming down my face. Then I remembered that I had to meet the pharmacist, pulled myself together and raced back to hospital.

We now have quite the shopping list for the pharmacy, as Gavin is on 6 different daily medications at the moment. He receives some others periodically. After this somewhat depressing chat, Gavin decided he wanted to go for a walk, so Bubby and I took him for a spin in the wheelchair, and went downstairs to the little shop on the main floor. He hasn’t been well enough to be in there for absolutely ages, and enjoyed poking around and choosing some stickers and a ball.

We collected Daddy in the lobby and went upstairs again. We were just getting settled in our room when we heard a commotion outside in the hall, and someone shouted something like, Call a code! A moment later, a code blue call came over the intercom and CCRT arrived on the scene shortly after. We were all frozen, with Gavin fairly oblivious, until he noticed that we were all upset and frightened, at which point of course, he became upset too. I quickly put on a a smile and pretended nothing was wrong, while sending a silent, fervent prayer down the hall. I do not know what happened or who the little girl is, but in the end she was fine, or at least stable. One of the team recognized me a bit later, and she popped in to say hello to Gavin, commenting on how lovely it was to see him doing so well. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for them, every day, to care for those children in such dire need.

Big sigh. Life in hospital is hard, very hard. But we are lucky enough to get to go. I hope. If all goes well tonight and tomorrow morning, we can go!

We will be open for visitors within a few days, after we have settled into a bit of a routine. No sniffles, sore throats or hacking coughs allowed.