Onward.

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Back to the old, big camera.  Let’s try that for a little while.

Vince and I have been arguing.  Over what?  Well, just about anything.  Pasta? Socks? Ibuprofen?  All topics I used to think would have no amount of conflict in them, but somehow we find a way.  I’m a low-conflict kind of girl, so this constant arguing and then making up like 45 minutes later only to continue it all over again 6 hours later is not a mud pile I’m used to playing in.  Tonight, after the last make-up of the day (hopefully, I’m not asleep just yet so there might be room for one final round of the cycle), we hugged, apologized, laughed and acknowledged that this was going to last at least another five years and that we were in it for the long haul.

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I took Edda to the PT for her slightly disordered feet.  We ordered her some chipmunks. Not the little, brown furry types – just little foot orthotics that will go into her shoe which are called chipmunks.  The PT recommended that we not order the taller AFOs because even though it might straighten out her ankle, she’s lose mobility and muscle mass in her calf because there would be too much support.  I used to think only in terms of progress forward for Edda.  Lately, I’m just hoping we don’t go backwards.  I want her to keep walking!  Keep walking Edda.  We are so lucky to be able to walk, it’s always a good day to be standing on our own two feet.  Forget about stairs, forget about jumping.  Let’s just put one foot in front of the other and move through the day.

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In college, when I was working in an organic chemistry lab surrounded on all sides by carcinogenic solvents, I remembered dispensing acetone from a squirt bottle.  Me and my lab mates would spell out our names on the floor with the acetone and then set the whole thing ablaze with a bunsen burner striker.  Now I use the same squirt bottle to give Edda water as she’s falling asleep, it’s perfect, just the right amount of squeeze, just the right amount of liquid – it feels so familiar in my hand, the muscle memory.  I just spent 20 minutes tonight slowly feeding her 16 oz of water as she had just climbed over the ledge into a restful sleep and I could feel her body relax against mine.  I don’t think she gets more than 8 oz of fluid a day these days, it takes a long time to hydrate her.  No one else really likes doing this little nighttime task – it’s a little tricky, she is drinking while she is asleep and I don’t do it all the time.

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2 thoughts on “Onward.”

  1. Hang in there you Doris. I remember when Josh and I went through similar times. At one point Scott tried to help me by saying "sweetie you know it's mostly his hormones". To which I replied, "you know you are talking to a 50 year old woman about hormones, right!".

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