A Day in the Life

Me?  Well, typically it's like this:

I get up at 6:30 (I know--sleeping in!) and get ready for the day.  At 6:45 I go downstairs and wake E&E for school.  If Alexa spent the night at the hospital either I call her or she calls me to fill me in on how it went.  Then I go upstairs and prep for breakfast, then back down and wake Ezra up again, then up and take vitamins, then down and wake Ezra, then up...you get the idea.  At 7:15 or so we read a little scripture, eat, and leave for school around 7:30.  First Ez gets delivered to Highland High School and then Eden to Clayton Middle School (less than a mile apart).  After that I usually drive directly to the hospital.

At the hospital--Kait is usually asleep--I check in with her nurse, email, read, and FB.  Kaitlyn gets in the habit on and off of staying up all night and sleeping away the day.  There are a couple of reasons for this--1) nighttime here is daytime in Saipan, so that's the best time to chat with friends, etc. and 2) sometimes--when she's not feeling well or has just had all the hospital she can take--she doesn't want to talk to any of the medical personnel, especially doctors. Sleeping all day is probably the most effective way to accomplish this. Anyway, if I'm being particularly productive I study or write a blog post.  This is a good time for me to be at the hospital because the oncology team (attending doc, fellow doc, resident doc, pharmacist, social worker, dietician, child life specialist, etc.), does rounds in the mornings and when I'm there they include me in the report which gives the most accurate picture of Kaitlyn's problems and progress and what they propose to do as far as any treatment changes, etc.  They're great at listening to my concerns and suggestions and answering my questions.  In fact, I would say that they listen as closely to me and give what I say as much importance as they do her attending physician who is the head of the team.  At least they make me think they do.

At 2:30 I leave to pick up the kids.  Usually by that time Kait has been awake for 2 or 3 hours.  I take the kids home, run errands like grocery shopping, laundry, etc., and arrange something for dinner.  Around 5 or 6 I go back to the hospital until about 8:30 or 9.  On most nights Alexa comes to the hospital after her 6:00 to 10 pm class to spend the night, but other days I stay overnight in which case I leave at 6 am to go home and run the schedule.  Thankfully we only live about a 12-15 min drive from the hospital.

People have also asked me about how Casey is doing.  I think he deserves a separate post all his own, so that'll be next time.

By the way--Kaitlyn's counts are on the rise!  ETA at home is within the next few days.