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Thursday, May 14, 2009

Tummy Troubles

(from last night... I can't post from my bedroom. One day, we'll hook up that second router...)


My tummy is so sad.

No, not sad… upset.

That’s it.

My tummy is upset.

Apparently, Taxotere does not agree with my stomach.

They have been disagreeing with each other all week!

I do not have nausea… at least, nothing to get worked up about.

But I do have… well… I guess there is no way to say this nicely…

I have diarrhea.

(Those of you who know me can just pretend that you did not read these intimate details about my digestive tract)

What can I say? I have had a miserable day, most of which was spent in the bathroom.

I slept for several hours this afternoon and, when I woke up, I did not feel any better.

I sat down to dinner with my kids, but then I needed to excuse myself.

I asked my eldest to take care of cleaning up and putting her siblings to bed.

She had a teenage moment and quite articulately expressed her resentment about doing “my job.”

She was right. But what could I do?

Moshe was not home yet and I needed to go back to bed.

In the end, she did everything I asked.

I called her into my bedroom. She came right away and flopped down on her Abba’s (father’s) bed. When I asked her to do one more thing for me, she responded, rather dejectedly, “I thought you were calling me in to talk.”

Clearly, she needed some attention. (I may not always “get it” right away, but you don’t need to hit me over the head with a hammer!)

We started to talk about this and that and then I remembered. We needed to think of a name for our camp.

Now, our camp is a subject for a different post, but I will just share with you what happened while we were brainstorming.

We got the giggles.

Seriously!

You know how it is when you get the giggles…. You just cannot stop laughing.

Every silly suggestion makes you laugh even harder.

Well, we were rolling with laughter!

I answered the phone several times in the middle and I know we sounded quite loony! That just made us laugh even harder!

When we finally finished, we were both in really good moods.

Just then, my youngest came in, rather contrite.

My eldest, having received the attention she needed, gracefully exited the room and made way for her little sister.

I invited my youngest to sit on my bed and offered to comb out her long hair. There is something very nurturing about combing out hair. (I think my feelings about it stem from when I read Cheaper by the Dozen)

I tortured combed her hair for about 20 minutes, in the middle of which she apologized. (No need to elaborate about forgiven sins)

When I finished, and her hair was all shiny and smooth, and we had a nice reconciliatory hug. Then several more hugs, just because we love each other.

Lest you worry that my son was left out of all these good feelings, in between one of my trips between my bathroom and bedroom, I made sure to give him some positive feedback and get, of course, a nice good night hug!

Not too bad for a mom suffering from stomach problems.



Please daven (or send happy, healing thoughts) for RivkA bat Teirtzel.

With love and optimism,
RivkA

4 comments:

Daria said...

What a great story ... kids so need that attention ... hope you are getting the attention you need.

RivkA with a capital A said...

I am. Thanks.

My oncologist just called to let me know that diarrhea is a serious side effect of Taxotere.

Luckily, treatment is pretty straight forward: Immodium ("Stop-It")

If it goes on too long, I have to go to the ER, but hopefully the drugs will stop it (pun intended) before that is necessary.

adena said...

isn't it amazing what moms can do even with...ahem...diarrhea? hope the Immodium does it's thing. thinking of you...

HolyCityPrayer said...

RivkA,

I have a method of brushing my 5 year old's hair, even combing her out - in the shower.

After shampooing, I put in Life or Dr Fischer pink "cream rinse" with rosemary oil merakech seyar, brush her with the cream in the hair, (then comb her out) then rinse out the cream. No tangles, no tears.

Gidon
the multitalented father