A mother worries.
I got a call from the doctor the other day indicating that the bad/scary/threatening testing of my sweet little dumpling's urinary system will be next Wednesday. Since he had a bladder infection, which is not all that common, it's standard practice to check whether he has this defect in which the tubes leading from kidneys to bladder are hooked up right. If they're not, it causes sort of a backflow effect in which pee goes up towards the kidneys when it should be strictly going down, and in turn this can lead to repeated infections, which in turn can lead to kidney damage. If he does have it, most kids outgrow it, so the goal would be to just manage the risk of infection somehow or other until then.
He's going to have a renal ultrasound to look at his kidneys, and then also this test where they inject dye into his bladder (with a catheter, which we've already established he doesn't enjoy) to look at whether the gasket (using strictly lay terms) is sealed well. I made the GRISLY mistake this morning of googling "renal ultrasound in baby boys" and within merely five minutes I was in a tailspin of dread about whether he would have to have open or laparscopic surgery, and whether he would lose a kidney before we were through. Never mind that in the rational (admittedly small) portion of my brain there's this dim memory of a conversation during the crisis last week, in which the doctor said loud and clear: "We DO NOT do surgery on it anymore." He said that some doctors do low-level daily antibiotics to prevent infection until he outgrows it, but that seemed to be the worst case scenario. Even that is debatable. But now I'm sitting here and fretting… if nothing else there's the procedure itself, which other parents online had to go and tell me involves "straps." (to hold the little honey pot down!! I can't bear it.)
Meanwhile… there's Ben. Last week when he confessed the little constant white spot on his vision, my first thought was that it was a detached retina. I know someone who had that one time, and it needed surgery, but was basically fixable. I called and got an appt for Ben at the Cole Eye Institute, which is a huge sleek new building in the Cleveland Clinic complex. When I called for an appt for Isaac's possible glasses, they said June 20. When I called saying my husband had a white spot on his vision, they said, "Come in in two hours." Like… NOW. So that concerned me a bit, and Ben too. He canceled his day (we had closed on the house that morning) and in he went.
They looked at his eye every which way, and put dye in his veins to take pictures of it. He brought the pictures home, even, to show Isaac. What's weird is that the spot he sees in the center of his vision, is also easy for US to see on the photo. Apparently what he has is a genetic thing akin to macular degeneration. So the plan, if you can call it that, is just to monitor what happens with it. But there's not much they can do.
Well, in the context of uncle Will's death, what Ben and I were both scared of was something life threatening, like, say, brain cancer. So when it turned out to "just" be about his sight, we were both quite relieved. However, now that a week has passed and the dust has settled, the whole idea of Ben's sight being threatened seems a little more ominous. It's just in the right eye now, but…? It's a tiny dot now, but…? Back in the day, I worked as an amanuensis (her term) for intellectual/literary figure Diana Trilling. She was at that time 88-91 years old and pretty near blind from macular degeneration, so I have a sense of what that's like. But she was OLD. Ben is YOUNG.
I would say that it's a nice change of pace to be less worried about Isaac than usual. I've been reading this book about the "spirited" child– one who is "more intense, energetic, perceptive, sensitive, and persistent." Isaac fits the profile to a T. This has helped me a bit in coping with his craziness, and also worrying less about whether he is really technically CRAZY with a capital C, or just… you know, crazy, lower case. The book is sort of like a support group– indeed the lady runs an actual support group– for those of us (apparently 10%) blessed with spirited children. It has a lot of useful strategies and ideas that I've been implementing with some success.
It's been really an intense week, though. Dueling houses is the situation now. It seems like I spent the whole week down at the new house, carrying an 18 lb baby, while standing in the hot sun and hearing about the repair issues of the (fill in the blank). I met with the electrician, the siding/gutter guy, got the gas turned on, met with the mower guy, etc. etc. Isaac helped in his SPIRITED fashion– now pulling lead paint chips off the garage, now smearing the baby's head with Purell when my back was turned (when confronted, he explained, "I really enjoyed doing it!" as if that should suffice.) It's also of course challenging that there's literally nothing at the new house that one would need. So while I remembered food, water, diapers, changes of clothes for the boys, etc., I forgot sunblock and a hat for the baby, and disastrously, Isaac's Superman costume (with blue blazer to go over it for "Clark Kent" variation) and his remote controlled tarantula.
I had an especially bad moment on Wednesday when I was trying to get over to Isaac's potential new school for an interview. Just when it was time to leave, the baby exploded in poop. When I was dealing with that, Isaac took to pelting the car with gravel. I got that under control, and finally set out. However when I turned from our driveway on to the main road, I was dismayed to see a billowing cloud of papers trailing out behind the car. I realized that I had left my (silver) folder chock full of the inspection reports, and all my notes of who I called and scheduled with what repair issue, on the roof of the (silver) car. I had fun running around in traffic with both boys screaming in the car while late for an important appointment.
On the upside, even though the house is deserted, all the men who have come to fix things have nothing but praise for it. The electrician took me into the basement to admire the hand chopped full-sized trees that are still holding up the floors 175 years later. The gas man stood out on the lawn surveying the horizon and said, "HOW BIG is this place??" When I told him almost eight acres, he said simply, "You are going to have so much fun out here."
It's true. Even under these trying circumstances, the sea of green has a wonderful way of relaxing the muscles on the back of my neck. I hear from the mowing dude that we have 3-4 acres of lawn. It's lush and vibrant these days, and full of violets and blue star creeper. We just have to take the transition one day/week at a time and stay focussed on the glory that will be SUMMER.