Monday, October 13, 2008

The Post In Which I Use Blogging as Therapy

For me, blogging is therapeutic. I love having this outlet. It helps me think things through, find the humor in things like, oh let's see... every single member of my family acquiring strep throat. I could laugh at that. Right now I'm not at a point where I can laugh anymore. I'm not crying, but seriously... this madness has to stop!

In a house with four boys there is chaos. I try to control it and keep things at a low roar most of the time. I make an effort, in controlling the chaos, to still allow them to be kids. I try to roll with the punches and laugh things off and not get too mad when they color on the carpet.

All that said, I've hit a wall. Try as I might to stop, I keep banging my head right against that large brick wall. It hurts, but I can't quit.

So, what was the final straw that has me frustrated and anxious? On Sunday morning Kevin was sleeping in and I was up, but being really lazy. In defense of my laziness, I was tired. The kids are on an up at 5:45 kick and it's killing me. In fact, maybe that's why I'm taking all this so hard. I'm TIRED.

Continuing the actual point of the story... (sorry, but if you are going to be my therapist, you simply have to get used to my rambling, I'll get to the point eventually!) Kevin was sleeping and I was being lazy. I had put Ben in his bed because he was crying about everything under the sun and I thought maybe he'd sleep since he got up entirely too early. I was relaxing a little and Mark let out a gigantic scream. Really, more like a series of screams, with brief pauses for breathing. I jumped up and did my usual, "tell me what's wrong, use words please, I can't help you if you don't tell me what is wrong." He calmed down and told me that Zack stuck the thermometer in his ear.

I looked, saw nothing coming out of it, and decided to watch him & play it by ear. Ha! Pun not intended, but I did just laugh at it! Within five minutes he was just fine, playing, picking on his brothers and sassing at me just like always. So I forgot completely about the whole thing until this morning when he told me there was something that felt funny in his ear... and I looked and for crying out loud it was all crusty with dried blood.

We went to the doctor after dropping Eric off at school and she assured me that it was probably just a scratch on his ear canal. I was hopeful. Until she looked and said that his ear drum was, in fact, punctured. We got antibiotic drops and scheduled a recheck for two weeks. Apparently, it will "probably" heal up on it's own. If not, we go to an ENT. Apparently, when it all heals up he "shouldn't" have any hearing loss.

I'm freaking out. I just feel like I missed the mark so far on this one. Like, the mark's in California, and I'm still way over here in Florida. Although, taking him in to Urgent Care yesterday wouldn't have changed the outcome. He's not in pain. He seems to hear okay. So why can't I let it go. I just keep banging my head against that wall and asking HOW did I let this happen?

3 comments:

Stephan & Mary said...

Awww, poor thing! I'm so sorry you had to deal with this. After all I've read, I can't imagine you could have done much differently. We all have moments when we feel terrible about the decisions we've made, but we have to take a deep breath and let it go. My friend likes to comment that we are the best mothers for our specific children, that's why God gave us to them and them to us.

Melinda said...

I've felt that way a million times--like when I let Carter's pneumonia go for 4 days before taking him to the dr because I wrote it off as coughing from his tonsils coming out (or when he complained of his throat hurting and I sprayed chloroseptic spray and he started screaming and blood poured out of his mouth--the scabs from his tonsils were coming off and I just sprayed medicine on them)...I could go on and on and on. So, if it makes you feel better--you aren't the only mother who does it.

Rebecca said...

Oh... it makes me feel not alone... but it doesn't make me feel better that others have the same guilt and that feeling when something goes wrong... I guess we are so hard on ourselves because we love these kids so darn much... we just can't know everything. I guess I wish I could.

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