Tonsils, Moose, Payphones and A-holes

So O fell seriously ill a couple of weeks ago.

Two evenings before I was to go back to work for the season O started to throw up.  I do not have particularly throw uppy kids, so I took note.  Also, I cleaned up.  A lot.

By the next morning she was still puking and was visibly ailing.  She seemed to be getting sicker by the second, so I called my town doctor and got an appointment.

Here is yet another thing about twins: when one is very sick the other will grow the same amount of annoying in an attempt to steal away some of the attention.  So Z decided, as I was struggling to get them ready for town, that she needed to pee.  I put her on the toilet and she sat there.  FOR AN HOUR.  She did not pee, but whenever I would try to get her to stand she would howl that she needed to pee.  Finally I lost it and pulled her off the loo to screaming protests.  Meanwhile, O was turning grey and I was making great, wailing statements like: "I am going to kill myself if you don't shut up and you don't get better!"

We made it to town, saw the doc, and got our diagnosis.  Severe tonsillitis.  I was given a prescription and headed to the drug store to have it filled.  At the drug store the lady informed me that it would be a minimum of 90 minutes before I could have the meds.  Ugh.  I would have to kill an hour and a half dragging a sick kid and an annoying kid all over town.  I also needed to call J to tell him what was going on, and I wanted to call work to put off my start date as I knew O was going to need me for the next few days.  I went off in search of a payphone.  As we live in a town with no cell access, I am one of the few people in the first world with no cell phone.

I went to the three locations where I know there to be pay telephones, and every single phone, I learned, has recently been removed.  So now I am dragging sicky and annoying-y all over a town that only believes in cell phones.  And I don't have one.  So I get a brilliant idea.  I will check into a hotel.  That way I can use the phone, put my baby down for an hour, then go get the prescription filled, then come back and spend the night in town monitoring my baby.

The first place I go claims to only have their luxury suite available for 300 bucks a night.  I ask if she will come down in cost.  She offers to come down by about 10 bucks.  I explain that my kid is sick, and I need to use a phone.  She tells me there are payphones in the three places I have just looked.  I go to another place and the man says he will check to see if he has any rooms and leaves me there waiting.  After 20 minutes he hasn't come back to the desk. O starts to dry heave, so I get her out of there before she yarks on the lobby carpet.

I give up on the hotel idea and take the girls to Dairy Queen.  I give O some Gravol and Tylenol and then watch her puke into a bag of fries.  I take the girls to Safeway so we can use the loo, and O pukes all over the floor.  I go to the drug store (Shopper's, for the record) and hope that the prescription is ready early.  IT IS!  But the lady says our extended coverage has been denied due to "discrepancy in surname".  Huh?  J has one surname, I have another, and the girls have another still, but we have never had this affect our coverage.  I ask to use the phone so I can call to clear up the problem: "Sorry, we don't have a phone for public use."  I explain that I have a very sick child, no cell, no payphones in town, and I live an hour away.  She is not moved by my plight.

I get the kids in the car and drive home.  When I get home I call our medical plan and find out the lady who would not let me use the phone keyed in the wrong number for our card.  It was entirely her fault that I had to pay the full amount.  I can send in for reimbursement, but I will do so with that woman's nasty face held firmly in my mind.

O gets sicker and sicker over the next few days, and then gets better.  And then Z throws up.  So on my first day off of the season I head back in to see the doctor.  Unlike her sister, Z does not have tonsillitis!  She just randomly puked, nothing to worry about.  With light hearts we grocery shop and then head out of town.

I turn on to the long highway that climbs up the mountain and takes us home.  A few minutes later I notice the "Service Engine Soon" light has not only come on, but is also flashing at me with horrible urgency.  I immediately begin to weigh the pros and cons of turning back or going on.  My mechanic is at home, so if I turn back...where will I take the car?  Am I wrecking the engine by trying to push on?  I hit the next big hill and watch the speedometer drop from 100 to 20kph in about 30 seconds.  Oh joy.  I now estimate that I am eqi-distance from the town I just left and the ski hill that is about 20 minutes outside of our town.  There will be someone at the ski hill as it is summer digs to miners and there are houses around its perimeter.  I will go there.

Just as I decide to keep pushing for the ski hill I take another glance down at the sinister flashing light.  Then I look back up.  To my horror, in the few seconds it took me to look down  and then back up a cow moose and a calf have wandered on to the road and are standing about 15 feet straight ahead of me.  I drive a very small car that would be obliterated by a moose collision.  I stand on the brake.  Literally.  I am standing while driving.  Tires squeal causing the moose to look back just in time to see me and then dash off the road.  It's hoof is inches from the hood of the car as it jumps away.  The calf, disoriented, runs along beside us for about 45 seconds as I try to get going again. We somehow avoid the impact that would've caused the death of all of us - moose and humans.

Shaking, I press on.

Damn.  I'd forgotten about that one big, steep incline right before the ski hill.  A large truck is behind me as I slow down, down, down.  I pull to the shoulder that hovers precariously above a perilous drop to let the truck by, but I don't dare stop as I would never get going again on this hill.  The truck blows by me without bothering to see why I am going 10K up the hill and not stopping on a death drop shoulder.

I make it to the ski hill, croak to a stop, and am lent a phone by a nice guy who turns out to be a friend of friends.  A couple of hours, a tow truck and a rescue in a borrowed van by J later, we are home.

The next day we find out the car problem was a loose wire - small repair but my mechanic is amazed I made it as far as I did with a vehicle that was basically driving with no connection to the ignition.

Aside from madly rehearsing two new shows that open in week, life is kind of back to normal again now.

So that was my past two weeks.  Thanks for tuning in.

Taking Bullets

I just did not understand any of it before they existed.

I have a niece and a nephew, and they were the first to redefine love for me.  When  I met my nephew, and then my niece, I understood that a child can make you feel so protective you'd throw yourself in front of a bus if it took them out of harm's way.  Then I had my own kids.  Two at once.  Twins.  And now I even more fully understand how big this really is, this giant, all consuming thing called loving a child.  Before they were born I hadn't ever felt like I would gladly take a bullet for anyone. I would do anything, any thing, any damn thing, for my kids.

When the girls were about six months old J and I took them for a initial meeting at a health clinic we'd been trying to get into since they were born. We each had a glowing, healthy baby sleeping on our chests as we walked into the waiting room of the clinic.  And there we met another mother and her daughter.  The girl was probably five or six years old, strapped to a rolling stretcher, and her mom had to suction the saliva out of her mouth every few minutes to keep her from choking.  In situations like this the question is immediate and inevitable: "Why?"  Why did that mom have this enormous challenge handed to her, when I got not one, but two healthy children?  How does she cope all day, this mother?  The answer to that is pretty clear - she copes because this is her baby, and she would do anything, any thing, any damn thing.

Now that I am a parent I cannot bear hearing about any child suffering.  I immediately project the suffering on to my own babies and the mother becomes myself.  I cannot watch any film that deals with the death of a child, or cruelty toward children, without feeling my centre of gravity shift.

When O was about a year and a half old her hair grew and hung in her eyes and she'd freak out if I tried to clip it back.  Everywhere I went people commented on how she needed to have her bangs trimmed.  J asked "Why don't we just cut her hair?"  I said "I don't want to change her."  I never would have understood that feeling before she existed.  Its just hair.  But it was the first hair of her life, and she was and is so perfect.  The thought of altering the miracle that was changing and morphing before my very eyes seemed like blasphemy.

I once knew a couple who found a house they loved, but they did not buy it.  They did not buy the house because the master bedroom was on a different floor from the childrens' rooms.  "So what?"  thought childless I.  Now I SO get it.  I could never... I can't even let them sleep in a different room from me yet.

At least once a day I allow myself to indulge in thinking about what it was like before.  Leaving the house was so easy.  Taking a hot bath all by myself was almost always possible.  I used to do my hair and put together an outfit.  I miss that old life a lot.  But it is not my life any longer.  My new life does not find me at its centre.  This new life is all about two little kids who turned everything, every thing, every damn thing upside down.  My new life is all about taking bullets for them every day.  And as much as I loathe it sometimes, I love it almost all the time.

I understand that now that they exist.

Stupid Life

Up in the middle of the night having a full on anxiety episode because I head back to work next week, and dammit, as much as they aggravate me, I just do not want to leave my kids.

O is in a screamy phase, and Z is in a NO phase again.  At the end of every day I am frustrated, angry and exhausted and long for grown up conversation.  I complain about how hard it is.  I whine to my husband about how tired I am.

But as I stare reality in the face - that in a week I will go back to work (even if it only for a few hours a day, and it is only for two and a half months) I almost can't bear the idea of being away from them. 

I miss my babies already and I haven't even started my job yet.

Stupid life.

Stupid.