I wonder if I would be so emotional if I weren’t pregnant? Monday night when I dropped Michael and Jade off at the hospital after a great day out on a day pass, my heart just about broke in two. Jade took one look at the hospital doors and started crying, trying to keep Michael from unbuckling her out of the seat, and sobbing, “No want! No, no want!” Michael and I agreed later on that night to get her discharged the next day.
Funny enough, on Tuesday night we were headed for her room to get her ready for bed and I exclaimed to her about getting to stay home that night. “Or do you want to go back to the hospital and see Claire?” I joked. (Claire is one of the wonderful nurses we love who was on shift that night.) She turned around, zipped up the stairs, grabbed her jacket and kept pointing to the door saying, “Hosh’el? Hosh’el?” (That’s “hospital” for the non-Jadeish-speakers. It actually took me a minute to figure it out, myself.) Kids.
As previously mentioned, Michael won the coin toss for the trip to Vancouver. (And no, we’re not always that civilized in our decision-making.) I know it’s really the best decision — there’s going to be quite a bit of hauling luggage around for the trip (not to mention likely sleep deprivation) and Michael’s in better condition to do it, plus I’d have to use up special leave at work. And the Big Band is performing at the Alsek Music Festival on Saturday afternoon; it’s a little easier for us to make up for a missing fourth trumpet than to have the only piano gone. (I mean, they can do it, but the song selections probably would have been different.) All very good reasons to be glad Michael won. But that didn’t stop me from crying as I watched them go through security about an hour ago.
Part of it, I think, is that although I’ve left Jade before (for a week to go on a course, and I got rather emotional then, too) she’s never left me. The other part of it is that two minutes before joining the security line-up, Jade had another seizure. Really, it wasn’t a big one, but it’s the biggest one she’s had in several days, lasting about 35 seconds and affecting her whole body. Michael and I were both dismayed, as we’d hoped that the medication would be enough to keep her down to the 1 to 5 second involuntary arm-twitching type seizures. (We’re aware that that’s probably naïve; it’s quite realistic that she might need to be on several types of anti-seizure medication.)
Michael and Jade will be arriving in Vancouver in less than two hours. Then they’ll find some food, get some milk (I hope), and head for Ronald McDonald House for the night. Tomorrow I don’t expect to hear from Michael until sometime in the evening after the EEG and visit to the neurologist are all over. Just how distracted do you suppose I’ll be all day tomorrow?
