Gangsta Mittens
Words combined to express thoughts. Pictures displayed to convey emotion. Opening my brain to the world.

If I hear the roller coaster analogy one more time… But i have to say, the description is apt…

The thing i hate most about the analogy is i’m not even sure which part of this is up and which part is down.  I guess it would depend on how you feel about roller coasters, all I know is that I’m sick and tired of this one already and i’d just like to hop off of it for awhile.

I would give anything for “normal” at this point, but I think we’re going to be stuck in the yucky/hurty part of this for awhile.  So far week two hasn’t been kind to little Stephen.  Today there’s a blood transfusion, wednesday they found bleeding in his brain.  His breathing is a constant battle and there’s just other little stuff along the way that make the mind race and the heart drop time and time again.

Quite frankly, we’re absolutely exhausted.  The more sleep you get the more tired you feel.  There’s anger, there’s hurt, there’s guilt… oh so much guilt, and there’s just not enough happiness to balance it out.  I’m tired of feeling mopey.  Tired of feeling like there’s nothing to smile about… especially since there are really good things happening around us.  Friends having babies, people pitching in to help us out, work, school, just a lot of other not awful things are happening, but it’s so hard to just soak it up, because the bad stuff is just so damn heavy.

In short, it hurts.  I know it’s natural to feel what we’re feeling.  But that doesn’t do shit to make it hurt less.  I know that rest is important, but i also worry about depression and anxiety setting in (issues that we both deal with).  I’ve been working on letting myself be vulnerable and accepting the emotions as they come because i don’t want to bottle them up or wall them off, but nothing about this is easy.  The things that I would love to do for our mental health’s sake, feel so wrong with all that’s going on… how could you go out to a nice dinner while your child is in the hospital?  how could you go watch a movie while your son is connected to 6 million tubes?  But those are the things that might keep us from going over the edge… so it’s a balancing act… letting yourself grieve/process everything without letting yourself get in too deep.  Constantly checking on one another and reminding each other that it’s ok to feel and to hurt.

I get it, and i’m trying to keep a level head, but if they would slow down this ride just a bit, i’d grab brian and stephen and hop off in a second… tuck and roll, folks.  tuck and roll.