I used to sit at this window and watch my children playing outside.
I used to sit and wonder what had gone wrong and how I was ever going to be able to pull myself out of the mud.
The window was my view to the outside world because I was too scared to leave the house.
The window was an escape.
The window, filled with butterflies and blurred by my unrelenting tears, created rainbows.
From my place I could see the bright oranges of the autumn sunrise and the heavy pinks of sunset as my days moved as fleetingly as the clouds that passed me by.
The trees that enveloped and grew around the window were places that I could take myself to, the patterns and colours lending itself to my retreat from my terrible reality that my baby had died and that I was still here.
Left to wonder and wish my life away.
It saw me through those first, grief stricken months:
The Window.
Tonight I sit here again.
The children have come and gone, some to sit for a while, some to look through the glass, touch the butterflies that flutter here still, five years on,
others who want to talk.
Life moves around me in a torrent flow of gangly arms and legs, familiar faces and emotions.
Five years ago I wondered about my son, that I would never know him, that I would never see him reach all the milestones of his sisters before him.
I’m wondering about my youngest girl tonight and what will become of her.
She has been sick.
Too sick to move.
She is tired.
I am tired.
We had four wonderful weeks where she was in the best health that she has ever celebrated
and it was a celebration.
Now, we are almost back to square one.
The infection in her ears is Pseudomonas.
The very same that she grew in the hospital, that the infectious control doctors chose not to treat.
The very same that made her terribly ill twice before.
Also; the Staph is still there, underlying, not as prolific
The treatment for the first is ear drops.
The ear drops wipe out the good flora and pave the way for the Staph to take hold.
The staph and every other nasty spore, mold and fungus within a five kilometre radius, it seems. I guess the MRSA is the thing that concerns me the most.
The illness and high temperatures cause her adrenal system to be compromised and so I have to push her prednisone up, which in turn supresses her immune system more than it already is
and around and around and around we go.
Through the window, the moon teases me, mockingly, in a half crescent wink.
I can’t see the funny side tonight.
The immunologist has declared that the IVIG will not be increased.
The paed is not sure what to do next. There is talk of more uneccesary testing. What he does know is that he does not want her in the hospital…yet. There are too many nasty things for her to pick up, floating around in its corridors.
I am cross that the PICC came out so soon. I am cross that, after all that, we have just gotten back on the same ride.
It’s just a different day.
The paed is cross because I am taking her medications into my own hands.
I want to avoid the hospital too.
This is a lose/ lose situation.
For Ivy.
We are once again in limbo, with a half -well, waife girl and the horrible, hospital aquired infection, tagging along for the ride.
I hate this.
I have spent the afternoon staring out of the window, the trees whispering to me, tempting me to far away places, to leave this reality behind me.
I want this to be over.
Tonight as I stare out the window, my mood is as black as the descending night.
