Family Life – Page 5 – a hippie with a minivan

Fever and fears…

In just a few days it will be a year since our whole ordeal with Wilhelmina began and six months since it ended. If you are new to reading my blog, here is a bit of the summary. In June of last year we went camping in New Brunswick and PEI and in our last few days in PEI, Wilhelmina started a fever and was vomiting. She then got better, then got worse, then better and worse. She stopped eating, she stopped drinking everything but from the breast, she was lethargic, she lost more than 3lbs and trips to the ER, and pediatrician were not finding anything. For more than three weeks I had a feverish and very sick little girl and she was only getting worse. Finally, the pediatrician demanded that she be hospitalized and the ER finally did different tests and finally found the problem.

She had a Kidney infection. But not just a kidney infection, her kidney was blocked and was filled with puss and was basically mimicking an abscess. She had pyonephrosis and hydroureter/hydronephrosis due to a congenital malformation of her right ureter. After a week of IV antibiotics, she was not getting better, the kidney was blocked off. She had surgery and had a nephrostomy tube inserted through her back, into her kidney and all that came out was puss. Within hours of surgery she started eating again, after a month of being able to eat a bite. You can read the whole ordeal in detail here. We stayed for another week in the hospital and then went home with the tube for three months while we waited for tests to make sure that her kidney was still functioning.

Then on October 4th, we headed to the hospital early in the morning for surgery. She was taken away from my arms at 7:55am and was wheeled into recovery at 4:30pm. The obstructed (malformed) segment was a lot longer than her Urologist would have thought (5 cm long)and he had to cut out much more than he thought he would have to. That made the remaining ureter too short, so he had to lift the bladder up and attach it to the muscle higher up so that so that it would fit. He also had to taper the ureter which was still 5cm in diameter, so that it could be reimplanted into the bladder and to make things harder, if all of that was not enough, the infection left scar tissue and damage all over. It was the longest day of our lives. .

Two very intense weeks in the hospital (you can read all about the surgery and stay here) and then we were home again. A few more tests and then finally in January a last test confirmed that everything was working well and we had a healthy little girl. It was over, but not forgotten.

A few days ago, Simon remarked that it being the same time of year and almost a year to the day, that it was bringing back bad memories and she better not get sick anytime soon because it would make him sick with worry. I was feeling the same way. Then during the night from Saturday to Sunday I felt she was hot. I got flashbacks of the feverish nights of last year. Her fever was on and off all day yesterday and then she started vomiting also, more flashbacks, more worry. I am not scared of fever, if it was one of the boys I would not even bat an eyelash, but I am scared of her having a fever that mimics her fever of last year, especially since she has not had a fever since her hospital stay in October. Yesterday I was panicking inside, knowing full well that even if it is an infection, it will not result in what happened last year…But, the head and the heart do not always meet.

During the night, she was feverish, vomiting and kept on going to the bathroom but nothing would come out and then this morning her urine was darker and a bit smelly. I called her urologist this morning and got a prescription for a urinalysis faxed over to the local hospital. Even if I had a horrible experience in the past, the results will go straight to her urologist, so I am less worried of using the local services with that knowledge. If something needs to be done, I have complete trust in him for this.

I hate feeling so afraid of such a simple and harmless thing such as a fever and hopefully we will be through it soon.

What a coincidence for it to happen now though…

Calm…

Yes, I have been avoiding writing again. It is not that I don’t have tons of blog posts floating around in my brain, and it isn’t that I don’t ever have time to sit down and write, it is just because when I do sit down, the words simply don’t come out.

I feel like I am at a standstill right now. The house is still for sale, our plans are still active but nothing is going forward. I should be advertising the house more but I just haven’t for some reason. There are tons of homes for sale in my area and not many are being sold so I don’t think that it is just our house that is not selling at the moment.

Since things a not moving I decided that it would be nice to plant a few things in the garden and get the pool ready and just keep the normal rhythm and accept that we might have to leave it behind if it comes to that. With those things done it finally feels like summer is here, and that means that we are out enjoying the weather and doing things outside more. I have feeling down lately, so hopefully, thing are going to change a bit.

Another big thing for me is that I have finally touched up my CV. It is so hard to plan out a CV when I have spent the last ten years as a full time mom. What do you write? And yes, I am talking about a CV. I have a degree and I really do love being with people so instead of it just being Simon looking out for jobs, I thought it might be a good idea to do the same and whoever can get the best salary will be the working parent while the other stays with the kids. Though Wilhelmina is still so small, she is big enough that I don’t feel bad leaving her with Simon and the boys for the day, especially of we live in an area where home is close to work and the hours are actually not that long. I also know that Simon would appreciate the time at home also.

It is weird, when things were moving a bit too fast I was panicking and wondering what we would do… Now that things are at a standstill I am still panicking and wondering what we will do…

Hopefully, things will start moving again…

And now… my dad…

The morning my uncle died I got the news that my dad was missing from the hospital. He had received an overdose of meds and had received bad news and decided to go home. He called the ambulance a few hours later and was returned but was in end stage renal failure and refused to go through dialysis. I talked to him briefly that night and he said he would call me back.

(My dad and I when I was about 9 months old)

My Dad was another that had a hard life. Drugs, alcohol, partying, jail time and countless other hardships. My mother left him and took me with her in the middle of the night when I was about 18 months old. He tried for years to find me and to get me back. I met him again at the age of 9 and we had some rough times and times that I stopped all contact. Finally, in the years before I got married I let him back into my life.

(My dad, brother, Xavier and I the last time we were all together)

Over the week I prepared for my uncles funeral and waited for my dad’s call but my mind was elsewhere. He was in and out of the hospital often because of his COPD so him being there was not a shock especially since he spent 2 1/2 months there around the holidays. I won’t go there with the kids so I told myself that I would go see him on the weekend. Saturday was the day of my uncles funeral. In the afternoon, I got a call from my aunt saying that things were not looking good. I needed to stay at the funeral but I decided to head to the hospital before heading home. It was nearly 10pm and the security guard wanted to stop me but I told him that I was going up anyway. It was a shock to see him. His legs and belly were so swollen because of the fluids and he was suffering. It tool him a few seconds to realize I was there and who I was but when he did he sat up and for 15 minutes he said goodbye to me. We held each other and said “I love you’s” and then I left to let him sleep.

On Sunday, I decided to go spend the a bit of time with him and then go to supper with a friend to change to give my emotions a bit of a break. It was a rough time at the hospital with him. The swelling was at a point where water was coming out of his skin and dripping down. He was hallucinating and seeing people who were not there. He was alternating between talking about current events, talking about the future, talking about death and repeating over and over that he wanted to die and then being completely confused and not there at all. He told me that he wanted to go be with his mom… he had always said he would not die before her, but now that she was gone, he wanted to go be with her. He was tired but could not sleep as much as he tried. I knew that being there was not helping him relax so I said goodbye and helped him lay down and gave him a kiss and left. I talked to the nurses just before leaving and I knew that he was nearing the end. I told them to call me if there was any changes.

I went for supper and talked with my friend for a few hours which felt great and then drove the hour back home arriving at about 11:30… I looked up what my dad was going through and it confirmed what no one wanted to say. Simon asked me if he should stay home Monday and I said no, that I would call him if something happened and he said “I just hope that it doesn’t happen in the night again”… I told him… “It always happens in the middle of the night”

I wrote my half-brother on Facebook (he doesn’t talk to our dad) and told him in a few words that it probably wouldn’t be around much longer… and the 5 min later my cell phone rang. I just knew why. The nurse on the other end told me that he could not wake my dad up and that though his oxygen was at the highest setting, his breathing was laboured and that I should come in.

I left within minutes and like 8 days before I drove down the highway in the middle of the night to say goodbye to a loved one. I talked to Annie and my mom on the highway to keep my mind occupied and arrived at the hospital at about 1:25am. The nurse met at the elevators and I went to be next to my dad. He had been agitated but as I arrived he calmed down. He had suffered for so long and I didn’t want him to suffer for longer than he should. I asked the nurse what was the best way for him to go. He told me that if we took him off the oxygen he would be gone within a few minutes. I told him to do it.

I held his hand, I kissed his forehead and watched him take his last breaths and said goodbye to him for the last time. He died just before 2am.

I gathered his things and went to my car and wept and then headed to my grandmother’s house to try to relax a bit before morning. I fell asleep around 4 and woke up at about 7 and started to make a few phone calls. I went and got my aunt and headed over my other aunt’s house and we talked about what he would have wanted and I then realized that being his daughter, I was the one that needed to make all of the decisions and do everything. I knew that he didn’t want anything special, he didn’t want the funeral at a funeral home and all that comes with it. So I decided that we would forgo that, even though one of my aunt’s doesn’t understand, and instead, everyone that wanted to honour him memory would gather at a restaurant and we can raise a glass to him and be together and think of the good times.

(with Xavier, Colin, Khéna and Wilhelmina)

My grandmother, his mom, who died on new year’s day, had not been buried yet, so their ashes will be buried at the same time, next to each other in the family plot. He will be next to his mom.

I have so much to think about now… so much to do and so much to process… He was just 60 years old and he too is gone…

I’ll miss you Normand…

Butterflies go free….

On Wednesday we met up with Simon’s father, his father’s girlfriend and his sister and went to the Montreal botanical gardens to see the butterflies roaming free..

It was absolutely beautiful.