We wake up in the morning and give Serenity her meds. She still fights it, but it’s getting easier. I hate holding her little hands and body still and then trying to shove the syringe in the corner of her mouth. If we hold her head at just the right angle, sometimes she doesn’t throw up. When she does we have to start all over.
After the medicines have a chance to start working (we always give her anti-nausea med first), she can have breakfast. Sometimes she’s hungry. Most of the time she’s not.
We spend the day either perched on the bed that’s parked in the living room, or sitting in the recliner with Serenity on my lap. She dozes off and on sporadically, and watched the other kids making messes playing. She’d like to join them, but she can’t stand up. Occasionally she will ask to sit on the floor nearby. The kids are pretty enthralled by her new toys and she does a pretty good job of sharing them. (And I try not to panic about how often Indigo puts the baby bottles in her mouth.) We go through a lot of hand sanitizer around here.
Lunch is a lot like breakfast, and Serenity will usually eat. Occasionally she surprises us by throwing up unexpectedly.
Afternoons are like the mornings except the house is trashed and everyone is crabby. I vacillate between tidying up or turning a blind eye so that I can continue to hold my sick girl, the only thing I really want to do. I don’t want to leave the house, I don’t want to be alone, I just want to hold my little girl. As much as possible.
I watch the clock until Phil comes home & then we eat. This week people from our neighborhood are bringing us dinner. It’s so nice to not have to worry about what to cook. Dinner is a pleasant time; the whole family is there and I enjoy just watching them and listening to them. After dinner there is more cleaning up, and then the kids get ready for bed.
I snuggle Serenity some more, say a prayer of gratitude for every moment I have with her (with every one of my children), and then I fall into bed, unreasonably exhausted from a day of baby holding, nose wiping, and vacuuming. It’s mundane, but I’m so glad to be a mother.