Afraid to sleep

I haven’t slept in our bed since he returned to Afghanistan.

It’s half out of not wanting to sleep alone. And half because I’m afraid I won’t hear Kate.

Normally she just throws a leg over me and farts in response to me crawling into bed with her – not the most ladylike of creatures is my Kate. But tonight she’s whimpering in her sleep and not for the fist time today I am worried.

The day started out with Rick’s buddies arriving at the crack of o-my-God-what-time-is-it to clear away some snow. Katie had already left on her bus and I was scrambling to get Liam ready to go to school. When Li lets the dogs out and says “Mom some men want you outside.”

So I’m standing in my robe thinking – “this can’t be good”. I drag on Rick’s grey t-shirt and gym pants and head down the stairs thinking…”what now” only to find it’s Rick’s buddies – God love ‘em – and they brought shovels and a snow blower.

It’s good to talk with them and tease and banter back and forth. I miss the way Rick talks about them and to them and it makes me feel closer somehow to Rick to have them around.

Just as they’re leaving I get a message from the school. Katie has had another “episode” and her TA and the resource teacher are taking her to emerge. My heart drops into the pit of my stomach. I grab my coat, shove on my ugliest boots and head for the door.

The boys haven’t pulled out of the yard yet and one of them sees the look on my face and says, “I’ll drive.”

I’m babbling to keep from crying. I have no clue what I said on the drive to the hospital – but I know I didn’t take many breaths between words. Tim, God bless him, keeps up with my wacky train of thought and responds in all the appropriate places.

We get there and Kate is sitting in a wheelchair in the waiting area. She doesn’t really respond to my presence other than a quick glance – but she’s alert. Her pupils look huge despite the harsh hospital fluorescents and I worry that something else has happened.

I have to give the nurses more information about Kate’s medications. I know I filled out a form so the school would have all of this information but it’s obviously been lost in the bureaucratic mumbo jumbo of student privacy and the School District 17 filing system.

We wait a few more minutes and are given a room. The doctor orders blood work to check “levels”. A call is placed to her neurologist, who – surprise – is once again not in the office. When the time comes to take her blood. Tim grabs Kate’s legs, I take the right side and her head, a nurse, Kate’s TA and the lab tech take the other side. We’ve done blood work with Kate before and have horror stories to tell.

Today, however, all the fight seems to be gone from my girl. And I’m both grateful that she’s still for the blood to be drawn and extremely worried that she didn’t bother to protest. Funny what you can be worried about when you’re a mom.

There’s little the hospital can do – they send us home.

I can’t quite put my finger on what’s different about Kate – but it worries me and my eyes don’t stray from her for the rest of the day.

By the time bedtime rolls around I feel like a live wire has been inserted into my bloodstream. I take a bath in the hopes that it will calm me down.

It works until I get into bed and the whimpering begins.

Despite all the challenges we’ve had over the last 13 years. Despite the frustration and anger I’ve felt over things she’s done. I just can’t imagine a world without Kate in it.

I’m so scared.

Day 153.