TRIAGE

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Here’s the new year… and on to Plan C. Plan A was to sell our property and buy a new one and relocate to San Diego before starting my job. That didn’t happen, so we’ve been on Plan B: start my job and commute to and fro until our property sells, then relocate the family. What is Plan C, you ask? I am not sure yet, but we’re on the hunt. (Feel free to post recommendations, if you have any good ones. We could use new brains on this.)

Don is showing signs of wear from the past 2 months of my commuting, and the past 4 months of marketing our property (aka cleaning the *&$@ing house every *&$@ing day). I recognize in him the pain of waiting. Having to live one way, knowing that another way is off in the distance “someplace”. I remember experiencing this same pain myself, during the six months between completing the adoption paperwork and getting notified that Becca was waiting for us in Siberia. The Dreaded Wait for a baby. It’s sort of a guilty pain, because you realize you have a life in the here and now, and it’s a pretty enviable life, but no longer the one you long for. It’s a lonely pain, because unless you’ve experienced it, you can’t relate, so there are very few people to confide in. People try to comfort you by reminding you this is only temporary, but yet, this is the kind of pain that seems to slow life down, because every day, every minute, you are simply waiting for The Thing To Happen that will get your life in motion. And the Thing is completely out of your control. It was the worst six months I have ever spent, and I can see it happening to Don this time.

So there will have to be a Plan C because I can’t stand the thought of what I know he is feeling. Besides, Plan B was never intended as a marathon, it was supposed to be a sprint.

These feelings loomed large over the weekend, except for the hour when Becca needed a little triage of her own. I think she must be doing field research for a book she plans to title Things You Know You Should Not Do, But Just Gotta Try. This from a kid who can sit enthralled through a 2-hour penguin documentary. She shows a sheer lack of common sense, even at age 3. I marvel that our species avoided predators long enough to reproduce and evolve, with thinking like this.

As we left breakfast for our errands, Becca asked for a tissue. She’s used tissues before so we assumed she was going to use it in a typical way (sneezing, wiping nose, wiping spill, wearing on her head). Instead she broke off pieces of the tissue and stuffed them irretrievably up her right nostril. By the time we had pulled over at Walgreens to buy tweezers, she had inhaled the tissue ball into sinus parts unknown and had an admirable nosebleed.

Poor hubby was about to keel over at that point from the accumulated stress, the stupidity of it all, and a long-held aversion to blood. I had flashes of spending the day at the ER, but then remembered my medical training and my own common sense. Sinuses connect with the throat. I took Becca home and flushed warm water through her nose and into her throat and told her to swallow every time she felt the water back there. Success. She swallowed the tissue wad. Gave her a little Benedryl for the histamine reaction and we were back on our way.

Becca, the crazy yet considerate, gave me a near heart failure but also a whole hour of not thinking about Plan C. Hopefully we won't have to resort to such drastic measures next weekend.