Relief

It's three in the afternoon, and already it has been a long day, fraught with emotion.  I'm glad to say, though, that the day's prevailing emotion is relief.  After nine years of watching Andrew's weight and wondering off and on if his lightness might be a sign of something more or less serious, he is in the clear.  While we still await the results of some tests, his doctor is optimistic about Andrew's health.  Neither blood work nor today's upper endoscopy has revealed anything about which we need be concerned.  Subjecting him to blood work and various tests, especially today's scope, has not been this mother's idea of fun, and the thought that we can lay our concerns aside, having ruled out major disorder or disfunction, leaves me with one reigning emotion.

Relief.

After worrying that Andrew would not weather his endoscopy with grace, I smiled - even laughed - at his cheerful attitude and pleasant banter with nurses.  After fearing he would come out of anesthesia a roaring lion, I puzzled as he asked, "Where's the balloon?" and nodded as he told the nurse he was dying his tongue red with the popsicle that kept falling from his hand so he could stick his tongue out at the doctor.  "Sure, honey...  and if you don't see him before you leave the hospital, you may stick your tongue out as we pass his office."  Hey, we're adults.  We can handle a stuck-out tongue from the kid on this of all days.  Really, the boy was amazing.  I was a little worried that he would be a most uncooperative patient, but his nurses couldn't stop telling each other how smart and funny and cute he was.

Amused, proud-of-my-boy relief.

Sitting around Levine Children's Hospital, I saw parents and presumably grandparents come and go or sit together waiting to hear how their child's surgery went.  Some faces were grim, worried, teary.  One family, strain evident upon their faces, pushed a wheelchair to their daughter's room.  I almost felt like an intruder.  I don't know why anyone else was there, but we were there merely to rule out the possibility of treatable disorders that would involve nothing more than dietary changes.  Despite my uneasiness about what the doctor might find and how Andrew might feel upon waking and what changes we might have to implement, I knew that at worst we would be dealing with something life-altering - and that's a far, far cry from life-threatening.  Fretting over my child's diet is nothing compared to worrying about his very life.  And as it turns out, my kid is healthy.

Thankful, teary-eyed relief.

And then there was driving home, remembering how I woke at 5:30, showered, dressed, made my coffee, packed everything into the van, woke Andrew, brushed his teeth, put on his socks, and tucked him into the van with his pillow and blanket.  That's a long sentence for one single, incredible fact.  I woke at 5:30.  Normally, I wake up between 7:30 and 8:30, but I think I've done alright.  It was kind of, sort of fun... in a "Woo-hoo!  I'm up before the world!" sort of way.  Still, 5:30 is early, and I'm glad that my job as a stay-at-home, home-educating mama does not require me to rise every morning at that ridiculous hour of darkness.

Sleepy, looking-forward-to-seeing-my-bed-again relief.