The History: Dylan’s basic background is that he had Kawasaki’s Disease as an infant, and as a result, ended up with 2 aneurysms in his little heart. Lucky for us, there are two kinds of aneurysms, and he was blessed to get the kind that are spindle shaped (instead of round) and as his arteries grow, he will “grow into” his aneurysms, and barring any scar tissue, should heal nicely by age 13. He grew into one of them a couple of years ago, so he had one left as far as we knew.
The main worry (besides a rupture) was that if he didn’t grow into these aneurysms, he would need open heart surgery once he reaches adulthood. Here is the detailed background of his ordeal if you’re so interested.
If you are a close friend or family, you already know what I’m about to say.
Yesterday I took Dylan to his annual cardiology appointment. I slept maybe 3 hours the night before. I worry a lot about these appointments because somewhere along the line a doctor missed an entire aneurysm and pulled him off of aspirin for a year back when Dylan was 7-8 years old.
We met his new cardiologist and he had his full work up: EKG, ultrasound, etc.
The clinical run-down: The doc is cautiously optimistic. He said his previously affected coronary artery grew to the size of the remaining aneurysm which means he has NO ANEURYSMS NOW! Yay!
Part of the coronary artery is behind the heart so they can’t see the entire thing. Hence the ‘cautiously optimistic’ verdict. Rather than give him a cardiac catherization (running dye thru his heart), we all decided to keep him on asprin to continue to prevent scar tissue. It’s basically a better safe than sorry move and it has no side effects (no stomach pain and Dylan does not easily bruise). They scheduled a stress test (treadmill test basically) for May and the doc pushed the annual work-up (what we had yesterday) to 18 months. So summer 2011 they will repeat the workup and get another good look at his artery.
Daren and I couldn’t be more thrilled with yesterday’s findings and also with the care plan in place. It seems really solid.
The emotional run-down: We are obviously so very happy. Our son is no longer a ticking time bomb. His heart is 99% close to normal. Whole. Solid. I’m typing through happy tears. I can’t stop hugging the poor kid. Thankfully he’s only 11 and still hugs back. Then he asks me for something to eat for the 45th time in a day.
P.s. Dylan is also 5 feet tall now according to today’s measurements. Uhhh where did our baby go?
Tonight I finished my very last web design. Part of me is overjoyed and excited to be moving forward with my plans to go to nursing school, obviously.
The other part of me is kind of sad. Years ago, I started blogging as a way to share stories about my kids, and eventually my family history, to find like-minded moms and have fun. All of that happened and more. I not only found an enormous tribe of mothers who thought outside the lunchbox, I learned more about myself in the last 5 years than I ever could have predicted. I found friends in the unlikeliest of people, from a Sunday School teacher who calmed me down on a muggy day in Chicago, to a pink puffy heart of a dear friend right here in my backyard. I have walked this path with so many amazing people, there is no way in the world I could list them all.
Along the way, I taught myself everything I know about graphic design and blog development. I created websites, both big and small, and made a lot of people happy with my interpretations of what they wanted for their space on the internet.
It’s kind of cool to look back on this mini-career I built while my babies grew.
Amazing, really.
Here are a select few of the sites I designed. Some I can’t show you for various reasons (too local, too nsfw etc.) Once I designed a blog for a call girl in the UK (oh look it’s still there. Eep!) Okay well that one is nsfw-ish!
Here are some others:
Thank you. From my very first client to my last, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Some of you are more than clients, you’re friends for life.
(don’t forget to change your passwords, kids. If you need any assistance and you have yet to receive a Choose Your Own Adventure Designer email from me yet, or have yet to be assigned a new designer, email me at karenrani@gmail.com.)
My question is, when in the history of his hockey playing, did he pick up the idea that this was acceptable behaviour? Never mind that many young hockey players are watching him, looking up to him as the Captain of Canada’s World Juniors at IIHF this year, never mind that to watch that video turns many people’s stomachs, the fact is, THIS IS NOT HOCKEY.
This year was the first year for Dylan’s team to be allowed to use physical contact in their games. The kids went to a body-checking clinic, were shown proper ways to hit, and warned strongly against cheap shots and hitting from behind. Some may say hitting shouldn’t be a part of hockey. Whatever. It’s in the rule books and probably never going away, so kids need to be taught the proper way to do so, not to cause harm to others but to gain control of the puck, stop shots and throw the opposing team off their game.
At the beginning of our season, one of Dylan’s teammates checked an opposing player improperly, and hard. He came off the ice in a wash of joy, and said a little too loud, “It felt good to hit that kid!”
What can I say, they are new at this checking thing and it’s probably a bit of a rush, right? They’re 11. They’re learning.
His joy was quickly extinguished by Daren, my husband and the team manager. He lit into our joyous little player, telling him it wasn’t okay to hit “just to hit” and that his hit, while it didn’t harm the other kid, was unnecessary since the puck had been at the other end of the ice. After the game Daren and the other coaches talked to the kids in the dressing room about when to hit, how to hit and made them answer questions about sportsmanship and the checking clinic they had just attended. Our team hits less than most of the teams we play, but we get less penalties and more power-plays and the kids are okay with that.
Daren plays hockey as well, and tells me all the time there are guys who get on the ice with the intention of playing dirty. They do it for the adrenalin or whatever, or sometimes they are just dickheads. “We all have to get up and go to work the next day,” he says, “there’s no point in killing each other.” 10 years ago he watched as a guy took a skate to the jugular and nearly died in a pick-up game. While Daren is a bit of a brick wall at 6′2″ and 230 lbs of muscle, he can hold his own and rock out anyone who is being a dick on the ice, not everyone can defend themselves as effectively.
What Cormier did was inexcusable. At 19 years old, he should know better. He should be suspended until Mikael Tam can play hockey again, if not for life.
On Friday night, Thomas and I went alone to the grocery store to get a few things and he asked me to make him crab dip. Normally a trip to the grocery store with Thomas ends in frustration for both of us because I don’t say yes to everything he requests and he gets quite pissy. Drives me NUTS.
But on Friday night things were a lot different. We both spoke in soft tones, he helped me load the cart and once I told him he could make his own crab dip and use the food processor all by himself, he was flying high on the goodness of Crabby Cloud 9.
We got home and washed up, I put away the frozen goods, and he sat patiently as I got everything together for him to make his dip. He broke up the (fake) crab, scooped cream cheese and sour cream into the food processor, and I poured a bit of salad dressing and milk in. With his tiny hands making the machine whrrrr his creation, his smile widened into a huge grin and he looked up at me.
We scooped the mixture onto a shallow bowl, grated cheese over top and put it in the microwave. Once the dip was in front of him, he blew on it and tasted it slowly on a chip.
“How is it?” I asked. He was still beaming.
“It’s like a day at the beach, hugs and a puppy. The cheese is so delicate!”
Tonight I watched an episode of Intervention that held so many parallels for me, with regard to my mother.
Within the first few minutes, I gasped several times. This woman was an alcoholic and had a young daughter who left home to live with her Aunt at 13 years of age.
The mother, Jackie, drank up to eight bottles of wine per day. She blinked and raised her eyebrows and stammered through her sentences as she explained where she hid her alcohol, how she lost her daughter. Her family explained how she shakes, that she’s a shell, and how she has to drink so she won’t have a seizure. Every gesture, every movement she made was eerily similar to my mother’s demeanor.
Then they got to the bruises…oh holy hell. Large, spread out bruises that were deep purple and I am telling you, I could have been looking at my mother’s legs and arms. My mind raced to flashbacks of seeing my mother in shorts around the house, her stark white legs contrasted with those large purple bruises that would take up half her thigh or her entire calf. Then the screen flashed: “Excessive bruising can mean cirrhosis of the liver.”
My heart nearly pounded out of my chest. The parallels were hard to watch, yet I couldn’t turn it off.
“She just doesn’t seem to have all her wires connected anymore,” said Jackie’s sister, the woman who took in Jackie’s daughter Anna. I watched as this woman, who looked so much like my mother, stumble to her couch and flop down, and mumble something incoherent. I knew exactly what this woman’s sister meant. Exactly.
Then the screen flashed to something about “wet brain.” Again, the triggers flung me back into a brick wall of time to watch my mother in similar situations. It hurt. I held my chest as I watched. I got angry. I got sad. Then I got angry again.
I watched them go through her history growing up, the hardships the family believed brought her to this, then, the birth of her daughter Anna.
I also studied Anna, hard. I saw myself in her. I saw her shell, her tough exterior throughout the entire program. I saw her take a phone call from her mother and manage to hold back her tears until she got off the phone. Once she started to cry, she looked at her Aunt and said, “I don’t even know why I’m upset.”
I was 29 years old. And yet she made me feel like a 9 year old, even then. Once I hung up the phone that day, I cried and shook in Daren’s arms. It was one of the most painful moments of my life.
As I watched Anna work through her emotions through the rest of the show, I hoped she wouldn’t take as long to get to the point I am today.
There are times, like anyone else, when I feel vulnerable and sad. I think that’s normal. This weekend was an extremely difficult one emotionally because of a situation here at home. Rather than put all the gritty details out there, I sat on it. It was a private matter.
No one in my life has the power to make me feel like a victim. No one has the power to make me second guess myself. I had to be reminded of that this past weekend by a very dear friend. She knows who she is.
My life is too rich and too full now to be penetrated by the misery of others, especially those who seem to kick me when I’m down. While I’m working at healing the little girl I was, I sometimes have to remind myself that it’s the grown-up me that is holding her hand and guiding her through this very serious, very difficult stuff. It’s the grown-up in me that has to protect my heart and my head, especially if someone is continually pushing me down, even under a thinly veiled guise of challenge or honesty. If I feel someone is being intentionally cruel, I will push the door closed. It’s what I have to do to protect myself.
Even if my mother herself showed up on my doorstep tomorrow, I would not allow her any power over me. I am a stronger person for having walked this path. No one has walked this path but me, and I will not open the door to her abuse ever again.
Near the end of the show, the therapist told Anna, “you may never forget, but you need to learn to forgive.”
To this day, I’m willing to bet if it hasn’t already happened, my mother will die alone. It’s a sad fact. The remaining wall I have up about my mother has been chipping away slowly, and this scenario has been peering through the cracks. I feel as though I need to brace myself for this eventuality. She might live to be 100, she might be dead already.
I really don’t know how I will react to her death. To be honest, I’m not okay with painting her with this one paintbrush. She is more than that. There were six sober years that I got to see the bright, cheery, loving mother on a regular basis. I cling to those memories that have and will continue to come out eventually in The Little Series. I know she is more than the bottle, more than the yelling, more than the neglect, more than the revolving door of men. She had hopes and dreams and loved us kids the best way she knew how. It’s sad that her know-how wasn’t always enough and her many vices got in the way, but she wasn’t a bad person and her know-how was enough at times. She was a troubled person. Mentally ill. Addiction-ridden.
Tonight, as the show ended, I said to myself: “I know why I was upset.” And here we are.
He was tall, she noted as he sat down in the other lawn chair on the balcony of the 24th floor apartment. Her mother was in the shower and they were heading out for the day once she was ready. Little swung her bare legs back and forth under the lawn chair, skidding her jelly shoes against the concrete.
She peeled back the skin on her banana and shifted in her seat, settling in and feeling the nylon take the shape of the curve of her tiny spine. The view from the balcony seemed to go on forever. Buildings and parking lots sprawled out and peppered the skyline with their hard lines. Little thought it was beautiful and loved the days it was clear enough to see the outline of the C.N. Tower. Today wasn’t one of those days. She often wondered what other people’s apartments looked like and if they had cats or kids.
She looked sideways at him, often straining her eyes to study his face, his eyes. Between them sat a small table with two glasses leftover from his date with her mother, the night before. The sun was shrouded in enough cloud to dull the glare on the glass and Little could smell that familiar aroma of wine. Her mother’s current boyfriend was a new fixture in their revised life and he made Little’s mother very happy.
“Let me tell you a joke,” Little said, and she suddenly perched herself on the edge of the chair, nearly tipping forward. She was nervous around him, and really wanted him to like her. He made her mother so happy.
“Okay,” he smiled. His glasses were dark now, as they automatically adjusted from clear to a deep brown when he stepped outside. Little and her brother Buddy found this to be one of the most fascinating things about him. Years later, she saw Steve Buscemi on screen and gasped, instantly reminded of the man sitting across from her on that balcony.
“What’s red and green and goes 100 miles an hour without going anywhere?” she recalled the familiar joke her own father had told her a million times.
He put his finger to his chin and pretended to ponder her riddle.
“I don’t know,” he chided. “Tell me.”
“A frog in a blender!” Little squealed.
They laughed together and he clapped his hands once. It seemed as though he wanted Little to like him too.
“What happens if you drink it?” Little asked, bursting.
“Tell me,” he grinned.
“You croak!” she giggled and went to take another bite of her banana.
“Oh you!” he laughed, and with one swoop, he clasped her hand in his and shoved most of the banana into her mouth, smashing it into her mouth and chin and down into her lap.
Little stopped cold and looked down. He was still laughing but she had banana on her shorts and felt the cherry red heat climb up her neck and onto her cheeks.
“I’ll be right back!” She used her body weight to awkwardly pull the heavy balcony door open, nervously smiling, and disappeared inside.
Her mother met her in the bedroom hallway, fresh and ready to go out. Her bangle earrings hung gently under her curly hair. Little met her mother’s eyes.
“I have to change,” Little said, wiping at her face and looking at her hand.
“What? Why?” Then she saw Little’s shorts. “What happened?”
Little told her about them joking around. Please don’t get mad please don’t get mad.
“What do you think of him, Little?”
“He’s funny, Mom.”
Clearly Mom wasn’t mad about the shorts. She clutched Little’s shoulders and said, “I have something to tell you. Where’s your brother?”
They both called out and soon Buddy was in the hall with them. Their mother sat down on the steamer trunk in the hallway and looked at her children carefully. She asked Buddy what he thought of her current boyfriend too and he said the same thing, “he’s funny Mom.”
He was funny, but not always in a funny ha-ha way. Most of the time when the three of them went to his apartment, Buddy and Little were expected to play quietly while Mom talked with him. They often went out on his little balcony with their wine glasses, while Little and Buddy watched T.V. inside the apartment.
The apartment was always immaculate and there was never anything out of place. There were rules as sure as the vaccuum lines in the carpet. All the tables were made of glass and they weren’t to get fingerprints on them. They had to use coasters, something they didn’t own at home, and if they played with the glass chess set, they had to be sure the pieces were placed back upon it, facing forward, in the middle of each square. They had to rinse their glasses and put them in the dishwasher, but Buddy wasn’t tall enough, so Little did it. If water got on the counter, they had to wipe it up and put the dishtowel, folded, back on the handle of the stove. The dishcloth was folded in thirds and draped over the neck of the faucet.
As much as perfection hung like a shroud over the apartment, the grownups didn’t seem to care when Buddy and Little sifted through his impressive collection of Heavy Metal magazines. Buddy was naturally enthralled with the naked comic women and their enormous boobs. Little leafed through them and thought they were weird and scary. She stared at the monsters that often had woman clutched at the neck or penetrated these women between their legs with their talons or other alien parts and wondered who would enjoy these seemingly violent pictures. She watched him with great interest whenever he came in to refill a glass or grab a snack, and wondered.
Little stared, wide-eyed at her mother in the hallway, waiting for her to say it. “Well he asked me to marry him!” she told them with great excitement, with promises of a house instead of an apartment, and more money. The three of them rejoiced in the hallway for a minute and Little scampered off to change her shorts.
This would be marriage number three for Mom.
Little’s stomach hurt. Worry slumped over hope like a dead body, and Little peered out from under it all, unable to move.
For the last 12-18 months, Ruffy has been gradually losing her hair, falling up and down the stairs, and generally morose. Lethargic. Depressed, even.
We started calling her Eeyore or Super Emo Teen Force Dog. She was SO woe is me, I hate life, and if my nails weren’t already black, I would totally paint them black and start cutting myself.
To get her into the car, I have to get her front paws on the back hatch of my wagon and lift her entire 80 pound dog-ass into the car carefully. Every time she stumbles on the stairs, I’m terrified she is going to break a leg or a hip. My girl has had diarrhea on and off for a year. She is sick often. I would cook her chicken and rice for a week every time her tummy troubles hit. Sometimes that would help her, sometimes it lasted longer. It wore her out. It wore us out.
A few times, the vet put her on meds to help get her back to normal. Ever since we’ve moved into this house, Ruffy has slept nights in the basement, in her bed, and thank goodness our basement is unfinished, because she has pooped liquid on that concrete floor non-freaking-stop.
Yeah, it’s gross, but guess what? Life is gross, but she is family. We have scraped up her liqui-crap, and steam-mopped that floor SO many times. It was frustrating and time consuming and oh so heartbreaking. There were times I was afraid to go to her bed in the morning and find her dead.
I just wanted her to get better. She is the only daughter I’ll ever have and I love her. She’s my buddy. She is my protector and stayed by my side through my pregnancy with Thomas.
Obviously, we have been very worried about her. She went through a clinical pet food trial that somewhat helped her joint pain, she tried several drugs, both homeopathic and prescribed. Nothing was working.
For the last 4 weeks, she has been on these tiny purple pills that we hide in peanut butter twice a day and she laps it up like, well, like a dog would lap up peanut butter.
Every time we pull the peanut butter out for the kids, she’s right there, wagging her tail and looking up at us with this dorky look on her face and her tongue hanging sideways out of her mouth.
Her energy levels are puppy-like. Her hair is returning. She no longer stumbles up the stairs. She no longer sleeps in the basement because her tummy troubles are over. She comes to me, sets her head on my leg and pushes her snout along my arm until I pet her. She licks my face to wake me up as soon as she hears my alarm. She no longer barely lifts her head at the sound of her name – she comes running. She’s made friends at the dog park, gallops along with them and laugh at me if you want, but my girl smiles. She smiles you guys. I’m typing this through tears, I’m so happy. I know she’s just a dog. But she’s not, she’s my girl.
The dog that couldn’t get in my car, much less on the couch in the last year? I found her sleeping on our leather loveseat this morning, which is higher than the back hatch of my car. And while Daren wasn’t happy that she could have poked a hole in that leather, I was ecstatic that she got up there all by herself some time last night.
After the stockings were ripped into, and the boys had unwrapped everything under the tree, they sat in their new beanbag chairs and thanked us for everything.
But we weren’t done.
You see, a few nights before Christmas, I worked until 3 a.m., putting together & wrapping their “big” presents.
Thomas got to open his first (something he’s wanted ever since Dylan saved up and bought his own DS):
(don’t mind our messy unfinished basement!)
Then Dylan got to open what he thought was a sled. Instead it was what he has been asking for for three years:
I can’t tell you how much fun it’s been to watch them enjoy these things. For five long years, Daren has worked his way through his apprenticeship to become a journeyman electrician, so money used to be quite tight. This year after building our dream house at the tail end of his apprenticeship and doing a little kitchen math, we decided this Christmas would be a big one. It helped a lot that my sister-in-law’s brother drums for a famous pop star and has an endorsement with a company that makes instruments so this was really only possible with his help.
Damn skippy, it’s loud in here these days! Loud and happy.
And it’s true, I do have enough shit to do this year. I have about 2 months to complete the 7 high school courses I wanted to upgrade before University, so they will count toward my application. I have a plate FULL of work to complete in the next two weeks, I have a bet going with Avitable to lose the highest percentage of body weight before February 1st, and yanno, kids and a house and a dog and all that stuff.
Busy is an understatement.
So rather than make unrealistic goals for myself, I’m setting a daily schedule, trying to follow it the best I can, but better yet, I’m not going to stress as much when the train goes off the rails, as it typically does in a mother’s life.
My un-resolutions will include:
1) I will no longer beat myself up about my body. I’ll try my best every day but if a piece bar of chocolate happens to fall down my throat, I will swallow it with confidence and no regret. Just no more, “Hey Fatty McFatterson why don’t you drive through McDonald’s ONE MORE TIME so you can pop that bellybutton right off your muffintop?” every time I spot myself in the mirror. Besides, that’s a really long thing to say to yourself when you spend as much time in front of a mirror as I do.
2) Rather than vow get active every day (which really is a goal for me), I vow to leave home every day in workout clothes. If I happen to go shopping in my Her Shapely Yoga Pants rather than hit the gym, I will see that as walking and possibly bending to check out good deals. Don’t look at my hair if you see me, mmmkay?
3) I will no longer spend money on frivolous things I won’t wear or use, just because they’re on sale. 2010 will be the Year of the Savings Account. The family can put on sweaters and I’m sure I can suck the wifi from my neighbours. 3 square meals a day? No way kids, we’re SAVING MONEY. Here’s your toast.
4) To plow through all these high school courses, I’m going to need help. The only way I can juggle this much work along with my regular gigs is to forfeit sleep. This is where you come in. I need everyone to write to Starbucks and let them know we need a store here in Nowhere, Ontario. Sure there’s one about 25 minutes away, but that’s 50 minutes out of my day I could be drinking studying. There’s an empty lot right next to my house and they could build there and just pass me a Grande Caramel Macchiato through my bathroom window every morning. That wouldn’t be awkward at all. Also, this neighbour means easy free WiFi. FTW!
2010: The Year of the Un-Resolution. Yoga Pants, free WiFi, No Sleep ’till Nursing School! It’s enough to make a girl giddy.
