Shattered Plans

What a tough and disappointing day this was! At work I felt I was swimming against a riptide. You know how when you get in one, you remember there's a way to get out of it but it takes a while for the memory to clear itself so you can do it? Don't swim right to the shore, swim diagonally. That's the way it is with kids. Don't come right at them about their crappy behavior, maneuver your way around it by praising the ones doing the right thing, bring them into your activities by engaging them and ignoring the inappropriate behavior. Today that was difficult for me. The principal came into the room and asked me to start a paper trail on one of my little guys. He popped up on their radar yesterday when he was hitting and slapping on the playground and wouldn't cooperate with the yard duty aides. Then principal J went out to get him and he refused to come with him. Principal J and the Assistant Principal told me my little guy was going to have to be in the office at lunch for the rest of the week. Today Principal P was in at lunch. She told my little one to come in to her office and he refused. She came in and told me she wants me documenting his behavior. The first grade teacher who has his brother is having a similar experience. Mom hasn't returned the consent for help for our onsite counseling to work with him. I am sending another one home with my little guy. My new, homeless child, is demonstrating the same oppositional defiant behavior. And the twins were at the top of their game with whining and tattling today. Is it the holiday? I really hope so because I won't be here as consistently as I'd like to this year and, if they're a group that needs babysitting all the time, it's going to be hell when I'm gone.

You had the woman come by who will be taking Matt. You were with her for two and a half hours. When you were done, you were so tired you couldn't even eat. By the time I got home at 4:00, you had been in bed for almost five hours and you were still weak. I called the hotel in Sonoma to verify our reservations and to tell them we were going to have dogs in one of our rooms. Fifteen minutes later you called me into the room, turned off the tv, and said we needed to talk. You said you couldn't go up north for Thanksgiving. You were so totally exhausted by the two hours with L that there was no way you would be able to travel several hours by car, stay in a hotel room with me, and be at my sister's with so many other people. You said your first priority now is to get strength back. You said you can't do anything that will get you off-track, anything that could confuse the issue, put obstacles in the way of you regaining strength and putting some weight back on. You told me you have continued to lose weight. You now weigh 156 lbs. You had been able to maintain 158 for a few days but you have started losing weight again. You said you can't go on the trip. You need to stay at home, rest, eat when you can, sleep when you can, and do whatever it is your body needs. Now you have to change your goal. Your goal is now to get yourself in a position to go to Idaho for Christmas. That's what you really want to do. You wanted me to go up north for Thanksgiving anyway; there was no reason why your health should keep me from enjoying Thanksgiving with my family. But this year Thanksgiving wasn't going to be about the food and the family. This year Thanksgiving was going to be for you, a time when we all gathered together and were there for you. This year we had set aside our own personal wishes to be supportive of you and your battle with cancer. There is no way I am going away at Thanksgiving and leaving you here. Yes, we've done that in the past. We've even had Christmases apart. But this time we need to be together. This time we don't have an unknown number of Christmases or Thanksgivings ahead of us. It is likely that this will be our last Thanksgiving with you on this earth. The number feels so finite, and I am not willing to waste it.

I called my sister, the hostess, and she understood. Being a paramedic, she has a tremendous grasp of health issues, and tuned into yours immediately. She was most gracious about your realization that you can't go. She seemed to accept it more easily than I. My brother and other sister also understood, and all expressed having had a concern that this might happen. Laura, on the other hand, forgot that this wasn't about her. She forgot that your health had been the reason for making the plans in the first place. She cried, she raged, she called you on your cell phone, and haranged you about this sudden, unexpected change in plans. She talked to boyfriend, called again, talked some more, called back. This is where she is still nineteen and can't get out of her own needs. How could we do this to her after she had made so many changes in her plans? Were we also going to do this to her at Christmas? I said it might happen then too. Your health isn't what anyone wants it to be. It's out of our control.

We will stay here and take things slowly. You will stay in bed. We will have a little dinner with Dad and David. Laura and boyfriend will go to his grandmother's in the desert after they spend a couple of days with us. We'll adjust. Cancer will bring many more disappointments, I'm sure.