I realized, talking to a dear friend the other day, that we have reached a degree of "normalcy" in the past year. We have taken a family vacation to the ocean (thanks to more dear, dear friends), Kai is going to be attending preschool in the Fall and she hasn't even been admitted to the hospital since last August. That's nearly a year!
This kid went from being hospitalized every couple of months for 7-10 days to nothing for a year! That just floors me. I no longer wake up taking her temperature, listening to her heart beat, checking her blood pressure… I no longer have to stay on her about drinking enough water to keep her kidneys healthy (because her anti-rejection meds are so hard on them). My world no longer revolves around transplant… OUR world no longer revolves around transplant. It most certainly revolves around Kai (and her brother, Reef), but not transplant. It is now, merely, just a part of our lives.
I still get the shakes when an ambulance goes by. I just watched a video online about a kid with Leukemia who is in need of a marrow transplant (www.bethematch.org), in tears, because I REMEMBER what it was like taking pictures and video of Kai thinking, "This may be all we have…" That parental PTSD may never go away. I will ALWAYS stop and think about how amazingly lucky we were and how precious life is. But, she is doing so well.
This kid went from being hospitalized every couple of months for 7-10 days to nothing for a year! That just floors me. I no longer wake up taking her temperature, listening to her heart beat, checking her blood pressure… I no longer have to stay on her about drinking enough water to keep her kidneys healthy (because her anti-rejection meds are so hard on them). My world no longer revolves around transplant… OUR world no longer revolves around transplant. It most certainly revolves around Kai (and her brother, Reef), but not transplant. It is now, merely, just a part of our lives.
I still get the shakes when an ambulance goes by. I just watched a video online about a kid with Leukemia who is in need of a marrow transplant (www.bethematch.org), in tears, because I REMEMBER what it was like taking pictures and video of Kai thinking, "This may be all we have…" That parental PTSD may never go away. I will ALWAYS stop and think about how amazingly lucky we were and how precious life is. But, she is doing so well.
1 comment:
Jas - This makes me smile. I so look forward to the day when our lives have some normalcy. Until then, stories like yours help remind me what we have to look forward to!
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