My only parenting advice (completely unsolicited) to my brother was, “it gets easier every day.”
It is such an unpreparable experience having your first kid. The sleepless nights, extra chores, loss of personal time, sleep deprived decision making, ‘kids are gross’, lack of sleep (did I mention that already?) – it is all quite an adjustment. But it gets easier. It gets easier every day. It quickly becomes rewarding.
That is, unless it gets harder.
Tara and I are not (well, were not) paranoid parents. We are not overly-concerned parents. We were almost laid back parents. Getting hurt is part of growing up, and it is best for kids to learn their limits instead of growing up in a bubble and ending up ill-equipped for the real, hard edged and sharp cornered world. So when Nadia started walking, bruises were expected.
She seemed to bruise easily. But some people bruise easy. Her nanny bruises easy. This is normal. Thankfully, Tara is a little more of a concerned parent than I.
Nadia ended up with a huge hematoma on her side in late July. Daycare did not know where it came from and neither did we. I poked it with my finger and it did not seem to bother Nadia – it was not painful. I have had hematomas like that and they hurt. If it was up to me I would have left it at that, my reasoning being if it did not hurt her it can’t be bad. But Tara recognized this as strange, and also noticed some purpura, so she made a doctor’s appointment. Tara was scared Nadia had ITP and I thought Tara was crazy. The doctors would set her straight.
It took a couple of weeks to get into a doctor appointment. By this time the majority of Nadia’s hematoma had gone away, but there were still some purpura. The GP decided to make a referral to our pediatrician, and ordered a blood sample. The appointment was almost a week away.
On Wed Aug 21 Nadia gave a blood sample in the early morning and we met with our pediatrician at noon. Now the pace changes. It is not ITP. Our pediatrician was not happy with the bloodwork. He circled a bunch of numbers. They are too low. Specifically, Nadia’s platelets were low and this explains her easy bruising. We needed to determine the cause of the low platelets. It was possible that Nadia had a virus or something that was attacking the platelets after they were made, in which case she will recover with time. More sinister, she might not be making platelets properly. (he did not say it, but could it be leukemia??) Either way, we needed to go to Children’s hospital for further tests. Given Nadia’s apparent well-being, there was no need to air lift her, but we needed to go TODAY. (it was already noon and Children’s is more than a 4 hr drive away) Our pediatrician told us to go home, pack our things, and drive to Children’s. I asked how long to pack for, and our pediatrician said to pack for a week, giving us a clear between-the-lines look telling us that he did not know. But if we planned for a week, then we would be well prepared to stay longer.
That left the dog. What to do with a dog when you have to leave town immediately, for an undetermined amount of time, and will be mostly at the hospital.
This was the beginning.
