~ Rest. Heal. Return ~

It’s been a week of it. Colds, scrapes, grazes, and a near miss in my car. The week started with that first sneeze, when the parental heart skips a beat, because you know what a sneeze means, and what is coming is not going to be fun for anyone. It is still winter down here in the southern hemisphere.

Last weekend, the boys came home from their father’s place, and the youngest son complained he’d been sick the whole time he’d been there. He was full of a cold, so he stayed home until he was well and went back to school yesterday.

The middle son started sneezing the same afternoon.

Of course, now I have a cold, too.

It usually happens the parents sail through miraculously while their kids are sick, and then we finally catch it.

I was especially sad for my middle son to catch a cold, because Sam was already feeling poorly. He had taken a nasty fall while running on the playground at school. I could tell from the moment I saw him step out of the taxi bus, that he was not in a good way. He was limping and nursing his hand, palm up, in front of him. Sam has Down syndrome and he can’t tell me what happened. However, I read in his “communication book”—which goes backwards and forwards between his teacher and me—about his fall. Sam’s palm was quite swollen and there were two large skinless patches. He had skinned his knee as well, with little gravel bits added. I felt like a monster when I sprayed the disinfectant on his hand, because he didn’t know what was coming. Sam groaned and pinched down on his forearm, and I said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but I had to do it.” It was a horrible moment. Then I put new dressings on.

The next day, when I went to change the dressings, I found I’d used ones that stuck to the wounds. Parental fail. Oh, man! To add insult to injury, the poor kid had also caught his brother’s cold. He had to learn how to blow and sneeze one-handed.

I took Sam down to our doctor’s clinic, to have a trained nurse clean and dress the wounds. She said she doesn’t think he’s fractured anything and the sites are not infected. He will need the dressings redone at the clinic in a couple of days.

It’s hard isn’t it, when you take your child to see a medical professional, and you know that the nurse or doctor is going to hurt that child in the name of medicine, and there’s nothing you can do to save them from the pain. Sam looked at me as the nurse wiped the wounds really firmly with some sort of wet wipes and then dry ones, and I could see him flinching, and all I could do was say helpless nothings, “Nearly there” “You’re doing so well” “Almost clean.”

The whole process made his hand and leg hurt so much, he was limping a lot more on the way out than on the way in.

As the parent who has taken them to be subjected to the procedure, you feel guilt. It’s a tough ride this parenting business.

To finish off a gnarly week of it, after I dropped the boys off at their dad’s tonight, I drove around the corner in my station wagon and came to a screeching halt bumper-to-bumper with a large Landover. The road is narrow and there were cars parked on both sides of the street, and we had both moved into the middle to pass through the gap. Luckily for both of us, he saw me and braked, and then I braked. We managed to avoid a collision.

I drove away thinking, what if both of us had been driving a tad faster? I felt very fortunate indeed. And I realized life has been hectic of late. The near-miss was a wake-up call to ‘slow down.’ They boys and I all need to ease the foot off the accelerator and look after our health and ourselves, first and foremost.

In life, difficult things can happen. There can be strife with people, or hard life lessons, coupled with illness and accidents. Those are the times when taking a step back, slowing down and taking a breather becomes really important. Rest. Heal. Return.

Talk to you later.

Keep on Creating!

Yvette K. Carol

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Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. – Victor Hugo

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