Sunny Side Up; Or, a few bright things

Sunny side up; Or, a few bright things

It's not actually all doom and gloom up here. Admittedly last Monday, when they did a lungwash on Sam, was trying, to say the least. A hungry - make that hangry - 4 month old denied food from 7am until 4pm is not the best of company; add in a general anaesthetic and a canula and I could hear his yelling in Recovery from a floor away. The weekly subcutaneous immuno-globulin transfusion into his thigh is no picnic either, as the tube is quite short and it takes 45 minutes so he has to spend it being frustrated in his bed. I imagine once we start chemo and so on, it may get worse. (NB: We now have the news he won't need it. But at the time, you live life according to the negative, the no-news. It's the best kind, because the doctors, when they  visit, generally only give "positive" bad news. The negative "good" news - it's not XYZ - get buried.)

But there are bright spots. Such as...

1a. City centre living: I do not love the noise. I do not love the people. I do not miss or love the "buzz". But, sweet baby Moses in a rush basket, do I miss the food.... On our doorstep there's a Sichuan Chinese, two decent Indians, a Coop (like a rip-off of Chicken Shed), a Longhorns BBQ house, two Italians, a Thai/Chinese and a Peruvian right below our flat. Chester cannot offer this cornucopia; I am in Heaven. Truly. Every day I manage to find another treasure. Yesterday I found China Town and a Dim Sum restaurant to take Oscar (the 5yo) to. And a very aces gin bar that calls to me like a long-lost love. All of which has led to...

 

1b. Date night: When we have to take Oscar back after a weekend to the sugar-toting, anti-vegetable, anti-gro-clock (AAARRRGHHH!!!) ministrations of Grandma, (and one day she will pay for her lax oversight of his home life...;)), we have a date night to cheer ourselves right back up. It's like not having children again. I can't tell you how freeing it is.

2. The repetitive nature of our existence: This is an odd one, I freely admit. Our day runs thus: get up at 7.30am, shower, dress and have breakfast. Make a sandwich for lunch. Set off for hospital around 8.50-9am. It takes roughly 15-20 minutes straight through the middle of the city centre, like a maternal arrow homing in on the target. Get in to the ward, leave outdoor clothes and shoes behind and then scrub through every checkpoint till you get to your baby. Get him dressed, feed him and play until 5pm when he has bottle, bath and bed at 6pm and we're away. But I like that life otherwise does not exist; that my life is stripped down to these bare bones. Apart from Oscar, a necessary needed complication, it's amazing how little stimulation I need right now to get through the day. Just getting to 6pm every day feels like a major achievement, another day ticked off, another day closer to going home. In suspended animation, in limbo, this life is totally liveable. I would have been a champion envelope-stuffer. Or chicken factory worker.

3. Sam: Such a fat, smiley, chatty, active, alert, fat child that everyone fights to look after and be with. He is our good news story: he has survived this long without being really poorly, he continues to thrive. The dietician has put him on a diet, his weight gain is so outrageous. And today he rolled!!! Life feels weirdly a tiny bit normal.

4. I miss my life, my house, my family more than I will ever admit to any living person. Not one of you will ever hear from my lips how much I miss our life that I worked so hard to build in Cheshire and the people in it and around it, it is not my way. It is easier to pretend none of it ever existed than to stay in touch, find out what I'm missing, find out how much we miss and are missed. However, it also makes life very controllable at a time when control is completely not within my remit. There are no complications other than what is happening right now with Sam and Oscar. It's perhaps not what I would choose right now, but it's easier to cope when you're on your own. Says no-one perhaps apart from me.

5. Newcastle is a highly prosperous city in many ways. If I were Christmas shopping it would be very manna from heaven. As it is, it's just bright and eye-searingly irritating, but it is a boon to be able to dodge into a Primark or M&S or whatever as you walk home from the hospital without having to detour. City living again: dead convenient.

6. The Geordie accent: We went to uni in Durham and I forever associate it with good times and being looked after. I trust the nurses more because they are Geordie. The thoughts in my head have a Geordie accent. I end up mimicking as is my worst habit although it is merely comfort-speaking as much as chips and gravy (in a Newcastle accent, obvs) is comfort-eating.

There may well be more. Being of a naturally hard and calloused nature, each day icing over another layer, compartmentalising my life makes living it so much easier. This is what I am doing now and nothing else existing outside of it makes it very restful indeed. Emotion is surfeit; every day when I walk down the corridor to Ward 4 I am Tony Stark made flesh. I mentally don my Iron Man costume and discard all that is superfluous. But it's not all bad. Our child is going to be cured. And not everyone can say that unfortunately.