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Mon 21 Mar, 2005 10:25 am
Had quite the experience on a trip to Sea World this weekend.
Disclaimer: Do not read this if you are eating.
Some background: We've just turned Ya-ya around in the car since she finally tipped the scales at 20 pounds.
So we're driving to Sea World (~1.5 hours) and just when we're getting close, we turn around to see that Ya-ya has vomited.
OK.
We stop at Target, clean her and the seat up, get a new shirt, purchase a thermometer, take her temperature. Temp normal, must be car-sickness.
We continue to Sea World, feed the seals, see the Lorikeets (does everyone have Lorikeets nowadays?), watch the sea-lion show, head to Shamu theater.
Just before the show, we catch a whiff of something pretty smelly. The guy behind us has gas! Ugh, he really has a problem! This goes on for several minutes... it can't be the guy. Is it the from the fish buckets? The whale water?
The show has started, Ya-ya's delighted signing, <whale, more>, and I realize where that odor is coming from...
We have a diaper problem...
Wait, we have a baby outfit problem...
OK.
So... show's over (15 minutes or so), we take Ya-ya and change the diaper (faugh), trash the (cheap bought-today) outfit. What do we need to do before we head home? I need to clean up, so I wash my hands, go buy another outfit (not-inexpensive but very cheap) at the souveneir shop. While standing in line, I realize... I stink!
OK, we have a daddy outfit problem....
Dress baby, pack up, head back to Target. Shorts, shirt for daddy; pedialyte, sippy-cup, baby wipes for Ya-ya. Daddy changes. Meanwhile, mommy has taken Ya-ya's temperature again - nearly 102. Back in to Target, baby Tylenol.
Drive back home (~1.5 hours).
By midnight, everything is washed and disinfected. Car seat to be reassembled after everything dries....
All's well that ends well...
When I was told my 15 month old daughter had an especially virulent form of cancer, and her life expectancy was between 2 and 6 months, with a less than 5% chance for better outcome. Now go out and parent that child for the rest of her life, huh? And do it right.
(Came back to edit) Actually, while that moment was bad, when we brought her home the first time and it sunk in that I had to parent her normally, as best I could given the prognosis, I also had to continue to parent normally 3 other kids at very different stages: my oldest son was 13, and his voice had dropped an octave while we'd been off island having the tumor removed and typed; my #2 son was always my sensitive child who didn't quite fit in to groups (he later came out, as an adult, as a gay person- but we didn't know that then since he was only 11 and picked on for his differences); and a 3 year old toddler who didn't understand how sick her sister was (as if the rest of us fully comprehended it!) THAT was THE WORST MOMENT: realizing that life HAD to go on, in spite of our terminally ill child, and that she had to experience the best life she would and we would have to help her experience a good death, too... while handling 3 other children... over 6 months...
Drew - I laugh knowingly at your plight.
Princess -
Quote:THE WORST MOMENT: realizing that life HAD to go on,
Yes. I think I understand this.
Just a quick check back. Ya-ya turned out to have rotavirus. Seems to be an epidemic in Austin right now.
Princess, I'm terribly sorry to hear about your daughter. That sounds soul-crushing.
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