One Day at Home

Today was your first full day out of the hospital. I can only imagine how nice it felt, how colorful and lively our overly-cluttered home must seem. I know you, and you wanted to get back to a normal routine. You wanted to return a cooler to Big 5, see the dietitian, do some things and try some solid food. And true to your nature, you overdid it. The words 'slow', 'gradual', and 'wait' have always come to you with great difficulty. By the time you were leaving the dietitian at 1:45, you were exhausted. Your last four weeks have been spent in bed, three in the hospital and one before that at home. Your life has been a long series of mini-naps punctuated by the occasional short walk or visitor. Today you tried it all: cooking, eating, going out, driving, unpacking. You couldn't handle it all. I think you will sleep well tonight as soon as you get rid of that chicken thigh you tried this evening.

I went to work. The children were very glad to see me, and it was clear that there had been chaos while I was gone. I am a little worried that this is one of those groups that really falls apart when the teacher is gone. They are high-maintenance and need constant 'wrangling'; a group like this happens every once in a while. This year just happens to be not a good one of those 'whiles'. I will be out a lot this year, and they will need to start rising to the occasion, yet they are only five, and some of them are so needy that they aren't able to play that game. The onsite counseling center is starting to come in once a week to work with small groups about conflict resolution, sharing, and working as a community. We had a minimum day and spent a fair amount of time getting some 'un-holiday' preparations completed for next week. I continued with conferences both before and after school. I am tired now. I came home and slept for two hours after taking some of the codeinated cough syrup. Tomorrow I have a very tough conference in the morning and hope it doesn't run into class time.

This is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month. It's a scary, scary disease that is not usually discovered until it is very far advanced, it has the highest fatality rate of all the cancers, and there is no screening test for it yet. It receives a paltry 2% of all federal monies spent on cancer research. You watched a show on Patrick Swayze and how he spent the last couple of years of his life. His wife and brother are starting to advocate for the need for more research on pancreatic cancer. He was in a lot of pain. That frightens you; it frightens me too.