Day 7 - In Hospital - Anywhere but here

You know one of the things I find really hard when we are away, life goes on at home, I may not be there but when I do come home, time has passed. My friends keep having play dates, kids go to school, bills still arrive, time passes and I know life has to go on but it is still hard not to be present. For a period of time my life is confined to hospital grounds where there is no real night and day, it is defined into shifts, hoping for a nurse with understanding and compassion, these are the things that dictate the mood for the day, making it easier to cope or crash. It is people like the lady at the hospital cafe who provides polite conversation bringing familiarity to the day (particularly when she has know me since I was pregnant), the cleaner who is thoughtful when your daughter is sleeping and she is vacuuming the room. It is the social worker who comforts the ever falling tears and the pastoral care worker who offers a pray of comfort and strength. The moment I find comforting in a strange way,  is visiting the cafe in the maternity hospital, watching the babies and their families leave. They look so joyful and happy and I cannot lie in that I imagine myself and wonder what it is like to hold your baby moments after he/she is born or to have family visit but I see their joy and I escape for a while and Faith loves watching the babies and people too. It helps both of us.

Beside me a mother has a heart felt conversation with her daughter, I can't see them but I hear the tears trickle  down their faces, my heart hurts for their pain whatever it may be. In a week we have seen above 8 families come and go in our room and being in such quarters you hear things, things you sometimes don't want to hear and there is pain that is far deeper than physical pain and may not be able to be healed here. Sadness lingers in people's hearts here, we are all here for a reason whether we want to be or not. There are kids who come here regularly and know the routine,  their are newbies who will come and go and forget those they met and maybe should have learnt something from and lives traveled. Then there is us, who come from a regional area and are sometimes lost in this big place and are trodden on, hurt and feel lost ourselves, we feel we are failing and falling and there is no one to catch us but somehow someway, we keep pushing on through this real life night mare and come out the other side hoping that we find our normality again.

A roadblock, trying to pass it!

Well, I didn't think I would be writing this from hospital but I am and as much as I hope to wake up and find it is a dream I do not wake and it is real. We came to Brisbane for a sleep study and it was our first big trip out with Faith's oral feeding. She didn't eat well that day because she couldn't eat the way she usually did. So after a long night we made it through the sleep and we awaited the results. Morning hours passed and we got a phone call saying the respiratory doctors could see us early and we were thrilled the sooner we could go home. The doctor had a grim face and added no she doesn't need oxygen anymore. The excitement and joy of this news was lost as my heart hurt and mind felt like I was entering a dreamworld, but no, this was real he said he wasn't happy with her weight. He said things that hurt to my core. He wasn't happy with what we were feeding her, nothing really, then the words that threw us, she looks to thin and she needs to be admitted to hospital and there was NO CHOICE. So many emotions ran through my mind, he was asking questions, all I could hear was NG tube and I was saying no, no, no, NG tube. He didn't get the message so with heart felt tears streaming like water falls down my face I spoke as firm as I could and said no NG tube and said why. My husband was as shocked as I was and trying to understand what was happening. How was this happening, she is eating and yes we were happy for help to increase calories and volume but surely no admission, surely not. But sadly there was no choice. I immediately called the Social Worker and asked for her help.

I have coped pretty good I think until this dark day that comes close to the worst day of my life, horrible things were implied and I might add were later proved  WRONG with blood tests. The doctors were wrong but no apology came. Yes, our little one was dehydrated this day and she is extremely anxious about hospitals which made the whole thing harder for her. Most of that day I felt that my heart was twisted and pulled and stamped on and will try to delete the rest for the hurt that it brings.

5 days later we are still in hospital and we have accepted their help with formula and have been allowed to keep partial of her homemade food, need something real inside her. I do understand that the medical professionals are trying to help and want was is best for Faith but they had missed alot of factors or rather were ignoring them. We will get back to real food but for now we do need some help to get her weight up and there is more but I need to ponder some more on how to write it and explain how it all turned to a road less traveled.   

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!

Inspire Bohemia: Inspirational Words

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the live you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler! Henry David Thoreau.

I love this quote and I find it inspiring. Over the last few months I have been thinking about what I liked to do before Faith was born. What were my interests? What did I do with my time and what did I think about? I then thought back to my dreams and aspirations when I was younger and it came back to writing. I love to write and sometimes I don’t know what to write about. The counselor I see suggested the book called The Artist’s Way, a course in discovering and recovering your creative self. The back cover says that it dispels the "I’m not talented enough conditioning that holds many people back and helps them to unleash their inner artist". The book tackles self-doubts, self-criticism and worries about time, money and the support to pursue the creative dream. I found the book at the local library and started reading. What first caught my attention was how there were quotes written on the side of each page.

Wonderful quotes like:

Straightaway the ideas flow in upon me, directly from God. Johannes Brahms

It is the creative potential itself in human beings that is the image of God. Mary Daly

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Words are a form of action, capable of influencing change. Ingrid Bengis

So you see, imagination needs modeling – long inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering. Brenda Ueland

I shut my eyes in order to see. Paul Gauguin

I love journals. I always have one around writing all sorts of things but I thought I'd start afresh recording what I hope to be a process of change and renewed inspiration and help. Each morning as the book suggests I write my morning pages, whatever pops into my head. I am finding it very therapeutic. There are weekly tasks to complete and it has looked at self-doubts and past criticisms.  I am finding it has already helped me heal from words I hadn't thought had affected me when they had. There is a good change and I like it, I feel it within, just letting my mind float a bit and get past all the unnecessary bits and being more free. It gives me the feeling that I am letting go of past hurts and believing in myself more. One of the tasks in it is to write out affirmations daily and that in itself is a very positive experience one that I am finding is helping me believe in myself more and that I can achieve anything. So I continue on my creative journey in The Artist’s Way but also in my university writing course in publishing, writing and editing. What an enthralling journey I am on and I am loving every minute of it.