Relaxing: Easier Said Than Done

A stomach virus raging through a surburban American household like wildfire in the middle of January is not especially blogworthy. Neither is the prediction of a half-foot of snow.  But tomorrow L is scheduled for major surgery and I am going into my panic mode that something will screw it up. Last Thursday, she onset suddenly with a particularly virulent stomach bug at about 4 AM.  At first she thought it was merely the outcome of a bad taco – resulting from a 1AM Taco Bell visit (kids!).  But we became convinced that it was a virus and her relatively new immune system fought it off in a remarkably normal way.  So good – until my husband was mowed down with it for the better part of the weekend and he even took off work today.

Necessary long-term steroid use after L’s stem cell transplant for leukemia in April 2009 has caused the joints in her hips to deteriorate, the left more than the right, but both hips are affected.  She has been in severe pain for a few months (but not enough to interfere with the busy social life of a 25 year old, thank God – what a strong pull sociability is) and tomorrow she will be one of a unusual group of people her age who will receive a new state of the art hip at the Rothman Institute/Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.  Major stuff. I am worried and anxious, but hopeful to see her finally get some relief.  And this is the best place in the area to go.  My 88-year-old uncle had a similar surgery done there last summer and he was better than normal within just a couple of weeks.  The man now walks two miles a day!  So L is planning to resume her grad school schedule later this month.

But I am a worrier by nature, as hard as I try to fight it.  The impending snowstorm, my son coming down with the virus at the most inopportune moment and the surgery itself.  Take a chill pill, Linda.  Stop hyperventilating. It’s out of your hands.