Jaws

Ugh. Dental day has come and gone. I was thoroughly terrified about how Eleanor would handle it, and in the end I am so glad we went over to Children's to do it. It's not that Victoria General isn't a wonderful facility with great care, but it's still a GENERAL hospital. Children's specializes in (duh) children and it shows. Nobody thought I was crazy for stressing and re-stressing her needs and in the end it went quite smoothly. 

But let me begin at the beginning. 

We came over early on Monday morning to fully capture a day full of fun before her Tuesday appointment. We went to the aquarium with our fellow cancer survivor, Lina, and her kickass mama. Eleanor and Lina got on like a house on fire. They ran around like banshees, pointing out exciting fish, monkeys, dinosaurs (crocodiles) and only pausing to watch the porpoise show.

Lina thought Penny was pretty cool too.

There is no way these girls remember each other from when they were 9 months old, and yet they had such an affinity for one another. It was fun to see. 

The outing was a huge success. She loved everything, especially those porpoises. 

Super Granny!

It certainly started our trip off on a high note. We reluctantly left our carpet picnic with the beluga whales and went to the hospital for our check in with the anesthesiologist and the nurses in surgical daycare. I think I must have been visibly anxious so we went over the plan for her a couple of times, and the doctor reassured me that we could hold a bed if we needed it. Eleanor was a champ throughout this and soon we were off to the hotel. We had hoped that we could go swimming, but everyone was hungry and tired, so we had dinner with my sister-in-law and relaxed. It was a little tricky to get Penelope to sleep in a hotel room with lots of action, so we pulled the curtain around her pack n' play and hoped for the best! Eleanor wasn't much better. I offered to share a bed with her, but I think Granny loved the snuggles :-)

We woke early Tuesday and we were all a bit under slept as we headed in to the hospital. We did a couple of pokes to check Eleanor's blood sugar level and they were both in a deliciously normal range, so we were good to go. I went with her to the operating room and she was definitely a little scared. I sat her on the bed and gave her a big hug. The nurses used this opportunity to hold her arm and they started her IV in one try. It was so fast. She didn't even cry - well, she didn't cry MORE than the whimpering she had been doing. I couldn't help but think of when we were admitted to VGH a year and a half ago, when they tried and tried to get an IV started but couldn't find a vein and finally had to sedate her. She has come so far! She got quite agitated before she lost consciousness and I was looking for the door the moment she was out. I hate it. She goes limp so fast I always think she is dead. I need a second to breathe and remember she is okay, and that we have her best interest at heart. My mum and I went to grab coffee and they came looking for us pretty soon afterwards. The procedure hadn't taken as long as expected and she was in recovery. They extracted her two top baby molars (I think they needed a *tiny* push. They were so dead-looking) and capped her bottom two baby molars. They cleaned up the rest and there were no complications, no issues.

Great!

And then I saw the faces of the nurses in the recovery room. They were frantically looking for me. Penny had *just* gone to sleep on my chest and a volunteer offered to take her. No, no. I have this. Eleanor was screaming and incoherent. Her lips were swollen from the local anesthetic. She was drooling blood and the sight of two metal teeth in her mouth made my emotions pitch. I quickly passed off my overtired baby for my overwrought one. As I held her, her cries became more intermittent though still quite intense. The anesthesiologist came by and offered a sedative. I thought long and hard. I know that coming out of an aesthetic is tough, but having your mouth frozen when you've never felt that sensation before...that's really tough! Usually eating a lot of food is how she pulls through the weird sensation, but because of that frozen mouth, she didn't want anything to eat. Still, I felt like she would calm down with a little time. Our nurse offered a DVD player, and sure enough, Elmo did the trick (Eleanor is currently obsessed with all things Sesame Street). Who needs Midazolam when you've got Elmo's World?

We took our time and kept offering juice. Eventually she took some from Jen (pictured above) because Jen is obviously the greatest person in the world. Eleanor started to feel better and ate a pot of yogurt. She threw it up pretty quickly, but her spirits were going up and up so we left the hospital around noon. We picked up some soft food for her to eat (pasta, pasta, pasta!) and I got lost on the way back to the hotel. No big deal, right? Except poor Eleanor was throwing up all over herself in the back if the car. Holy heartbreak. We cleaned her up when we got into the room and then Granny took her out for a walk in the stroller. By the time she got back, it was like the whole day had never happened. Girlfriend was on FIRE! You'd never have guessed what she had been through except for her likeness to a certain James Bond super villain. She loved all the attention from our guests and we were much relieved to see her back to normal. 

Bath time fun with everyone!

We had planned to stay in Vancouver that night because I had horrible visions of us getting into trouble on the ferry and the coast guard coming out to save us or helicopters flying in... But in the end we probably could have gone home that night. I'm glad we didn't. I'm even more glad that nothing went wrong! We had leisurely morning eating waffles and swimming in the hotel pool. It was a nice end to a pretty stressful couple of days. We are coming back over for her PET scan in 10 days (on her birthday, no less), so we are making the most of our "down" time, visiting Santa, going to ballet and playing with friends. If this scan comes back clear, we can safely say that she has been cancer-free for a whole year! Wouldn't that be a birthday/Christmas dream come true?

Baile!

I remember going with my sister-in-law to my then 3 year old neice's hip hop class. All the mums sat in the waiting room and chatted while their tiny children boogied in the next room to "Can't Touch This". I was very newly pregnant with Eleanor and it felt like the most surreal thing in the world. Those kids were just babies! Why do we put babies in classes? Why do we sit here and chat like this is a NORMAL thing to do?? Well, because 3 year olds aren't babies and it is pretty normal for kids to do stuff. And it's freaking adorable. 

I signed Eleanor up for this creative dance class at a new dance studio in the neighbourhood. It was partly because I want her to explore her physicality but also because I want to see how she follows direction. I think she's ready for more than I am willing to admit. I have put her on waiting lists at two preschools and after seeing her dance, I think everyone will be ready when the time comes. She's a little rough around the edges, a little bit reluctant to go with the flow...

But she gets there eventually.

And she had so much fun. I can't believe how much fun she had. She even made a friend! We arrived early and there was one other girl there. The two of them played follow the leader and ran around giggling. Then this girl blew a raspberry and Eleanor enthusiastically blew one back. Her mother got all up in arms and tried to stop this "bad" behavior but I was doing cartwheels on the inside. She was communicating with someone her own age! Spontaneously! I think even if the class had been a bust, it would have been worth it for that interaction alone. But it wasn't a bust. It was amazing and don't take my word for it. See for yourself!

Lately

A fellow "momcologist" posted on Facebook that her son had packed his own meds for an overnight stay with a friend. He's 13, and I was surprised and delighted that he was able to do this himself. I have no idea when children take responsibility for their own medication and kind of assumed that I would be putting an oral syringe in Eleanor's mouth til she turned 18. 

Until today. 

I prepped Eleanor's afternoon steroid so I could give it to her right when she woke up from a long nap. It was a little late, so I tried to get it in her as fast as possible. After Eleanor woke up, she waved me away in her cranky, post-nap haze, so I left it on the ottoman and went to get her a snack. When I came back in, I found this:

No big deal, right?? A depressed syringe where there was once medication. The question is, where did the meds go? I tasted the water, and there was no weird taste to it. I asked Eleanor "did you take your meds?" And she enthusiastically responded "meds!" Not super helpful. I'm 99% sure she took them, but what if she didn't? It's much better to err on the side of caution with her meds, so I gave it again. 

We are seeing this more and more in her. Her desire to assert herself and show she can do things all by herself. I knew this stage would come, in fact I welcomed it after having her so dependent and babyish for so long, but it is definitely not in the way I expected. We went for a walk with some friends the other day. I brought the double stroller because I was sure she wouldn't last long. She was wearing her rainboots and she struggles to walk in them (don't we all? Just me? Ok.) and she gets very distracted on walks. We trekked around 3km and she had a few moments where she needed to be carried (the tree roots tripped her up a lot), but she REFUSED the stroller. Her two little buddies took quick turns in it but Eleanor didn't want anything to do with it.

Eleanor is also refusing proper outdoor clothing...

And now she won't go in the stroller at all. It's a little frustrating as I need to use the stroller for dog walks! We spent the past two days fighting over it and finally I just went to a dog AND kid friendly park where nobody needed to be contained. 

We are prepping for a couple of trips to Vancouver in the coming weeks. The first is for her dental work, which is filling me with dread. It's just an 'unknown' procedure so I don't know how her body will react. I've planned for an extra night just in case things go sideways. Which they won't. Right? Ugh. The second trip is for her PET scan. It's scheduled for the day after her birthday, which means we will be spending her "happy day" in appointments prepping for the scan. I would have changed it, but it's been six months since her last one and I'm pretty ready to know what's going on inside her. It just means we will have to throw her a little party between trips :-)

Girlfriend loves a party!

It can be pretty hard to say no to this face. Especially when this face says small sentences or exclaims "eye doctor!" when we drive past her ophthalmologist's office. As my parenting ideas and instincts change with this new little big girl, I always wonder how different I would approach things if she hadn't gotten sick. I sometimes feel like my tank of parenting skills is ruptured, and it drains faster than it should. My patience is less and my anxiety runs higher than I would like. Who knows? Maybe I would have been this way anyways. I think about it a lot. Our life is so normal in so many ways, but we are still broken, still damaged. Parenting is hard, but we keep plugging on. Eleanor teaches us so much every day and is plowing forward, urging us all along in her wake!

Super nerd. 

Edited to add:

I'm 99.9% sure she took her meds herself. She was exceptionally sweaty and energetic last night and partied in her crib til 9:30. She is back to normal today :-)