With Grateful Hearts

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Day 3 is coming to a close, and it would seem that the Queen of the Sleep Strike succumbed to slumber at 7:20 p.m., even without her pillow.  This is miraculous, people.  The girl hasn’t gone to bed this early…well….ever.  With the sunset comes the end of her horizontal adventure, which is a welcome event to Bill and me, though a bit conflicted for Camille.  With a rhizotomy comes a dose of the unknown.  As the pediatrician here put it so well, the nerves of Camille’s lower body have been aggravated and tend to have to throw a bit of a fit.  For Camille, this means the potential for some numbness and tingling in her legs along with some possible hypersensitivity.  It is nearly certain that they will emulate cooked pasta until we reteach the muscles to do what they should have been doing in the first place.  So…the girl is entitled to a bit of anxiety as she is unsure where and when her body will fail her and when it will pleasantly surprise her. 

Meanwhile, I have been utterly filled with a peaceful heart…grateful for so many things.  I am so grateful we are HERE.  As we started this process, often in the wee hours when the wheels were running full-throttle, I doubted our instincts and questioned if we were taking her to the right place for the right reasons and heeding the right advice.  You can only hope that you are listening to the right voice in your heart, and not the crazy delusional one in your head.  After three days here, I not only think, but KNOW we are absolutely where we need to be.  I cannot overstate how incredible the staff is—every person—and we have met many.  Camille’s team has included nursing, PT, OT, Child Life, Social Work, Developmental Pediatrics, Anesthesia, surgical staff, the nursing coordinator, the dietician and neurosurgery.  They care without restraint and provide a model for continuity that is hard to match in this day and age of healthcare.  Care is approached with dignity, there has never been a single assumption about what she can do, and they have devoted their great hearts and minds to excelling at what they do every single day.  They are becoming fast family who will forever change our lives and not easily be forgotten. 

I am equally grateful for our daughter, whose charm, wit, charisma and curiosity have made her many fast friends.  I am so humbled that she is ours and that we have the privilege of learning life lessons from her every waking day. 

I am grateful for the beauty here that energizes us.  Shriner’s is nestled along the beautiful banks of the Mississippi River, and the city of Minneapolis has an incredible trail system which has afforded some beautiful runs.  Having said that, I am grateful that I made it back to our transient abode as I clearly didn’t read a map before heading out, and thus my 3 mile, -30 minute run turned into somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 miles and 80 minutes as I had to consult Google Maps more times than I care to admit. 

And finally, though I am grateful for so many more things, I want to say that I am grateful for the help back home.  Aunt Sissy, who I am quite sure is quite thankful for the quiet tonight, held down the zoo Sunday through this morning, Sarah has been keeping the troops entertained during banker’s hours, and my parents made it to Omaha today to take over the captainship tonight.  So, though I am a bit heartbroken that I’m missing moments like Jack missing his last front tooth and my nightly snuggles with the Livster, I am beyond thankful that the kids are un-phased.  They are in their favorite hands and my mom thinks to send me the Kodak moment, to boot.  Not going to lie; I'm also grateful that Livvy astutely spotted the friggin' Japanese Beetles that appear to have returned to torment our Linden tree this year, and my sweet dad is there to trek off to the nursery to find something to prevent them from inviting all of their friends to the party at the expense of our foliage.  

We are blessed.