Hamster Wheel
Did you ever have a hamster?
I didn't...but a friend of mine grew up with any and every kind of pet you could imagine... hamster included. I remember watching the hamster though the glass as it ran on the wheel placed within its enclosure. Running its tiny little heart out to go....nowhere. If he had stopped running abruptly he would most certainly have fallen. So he just kept on running...on those tiny legs...around and around. Until, one can only assume..he became too tired...and he would begin to slow...slower and slower still...until it was safe to stop...or jump out.
I am sitting in the hospital room right now....Parklen asleep just feet away. His medication pumping in through his port...with only the sound of his IV pump as my company. And all I can think about, is that stupid hamster... who by the way, I am pretty sure escaped his cage and ended up dead in the clothes dryer....(irrelevant...) back to the point....
I feel like I am running on a wheel....around and around.... carrying Parklen with me every day...holding him tight and reassuring him that he's on the road to being better.... but, we just keep running.
Around and around....
The soles of my shoes have worn, the skin on my feet can feel the burn of each impending step, yet...I run.
Around and around....
Waiting until its safe enough to jump off...or stop.
The safety isn't coming.
Parklen has been steadily declining in how he feels since last Christmas....More bad days than good. But we just kept running because, it was right for the season...everyone gets sick in the winter after all....so just keep running...but then came the spring....
He showed his first really concerning bruise 19 weeks ago...
A monster on his arm....
in those 19 weeks, we have spent countless hours in a room just like this one. Parklen hooked up to a drug...waiting for our wheel to slow. Waiting for them to walk in with the lab results that say that Parklen is on the right track. We have tried 2 separate drugs...the first of which, proved to be fruitless. The one that currently drips into his body...proving the same. Because the numbers tell us....we have to keep running.
I don't think that I could possibly count the hours that I spent in this clinic prior to the transplant....it was so so many....5 years worth of so many.... And in the months after the transplant, after we had gone home...I didn't see the walls of these infusion rooms...at all. I had only began to accept the fact that maybe Parklen was better.....fixed....maybe.
The Henderson's worked their way toward a new normal, one that included things like school drop offs and after school clubs... homework, and friends......normal...or almost...
I didn't want to be here again. And I HATE how comfortable it is for us. They all know us, I cannot take a trip down the hall without running into a friend Ive made over the years...The normal from years passed is falling back into place....and I desperately want anything but....
I want to send my kids to school...all of them,
I want to plan my schedule around our family and not around Denver trips....
I want to go to bible study and hang out with friends....
I want Parklen to bust up his knees on the playground...
I want to go back to our somewhat normal existence...
So, badly.
We are going to pretend that all is well for this weekend.... because we are celebrating a certain almost 10 year old as a family....
But,
When we get home on Sunday...I will unpack our things...to wash and repack. Parklen and I will head back down on Monday and spend a couple of days here.... Parklen will go under again to retrieve more bone marrow for testing....in hopes that a new clue might present itself.... and then, we will go from there.
So for now, we will just keep on running....and hope that our toward nowhere...becomes a toward somewhere.....
I didn't...but a friend of mine grew up with any and every kind of pet you could imagine... hamster included. I remember watching the hamster though the glass as it ran on the wheel placed within its enclosure. Running its tiny little heart out to go....nowhere. If he had stopped running abruptly he would most certainly have fallen. So he just kept on running...on those tiny legs...around and around. Until, one can only assume..he became too tired...and he would begin to slow...slower and slower still...until it was safe to stop...or jump out.
I am sitting in the hospital room right now....Parklen asleep just feet away. His medication pumping in through his port...with only the sound of his IV pump as my company. And all I can think about, is that stupid hamster... who by the way, I am pretty sure escaped his cage and ended up dead in the clothes dryer....(irrelevant...) back to the point....
I feel like I am running on a wheel....around and around.... carrying Parklen with me every day...holding him tight and reassuring him that he's on the road to being better.... but, we just keep running.
Around and around....
The soles of my shoes have worn, the skin on my feet can feel the burn of each impending step, yet...I run.
Around and around....
Waiting until its safe enough to jump off...or stop.
The safety isn't coming.
Parklen has been steadily declining in how he feels since last Christmas....More bad days than good. But we just kept running because, it was right for the season...everyone gets sick in the winter after all....so just keep running...but then came the spring....
He showed his first really concerning bruise 19 weeks ago...
A monster on his arm....
in those 19 weeks, we have spent countless hours in a room just like this one. Parklen hooked up to a drug...waiting for our wheel to slow. Waiting for them to walk in with the lab results that say that Parklen is on the right track. We have tried 2 separate drugs...the first of which, proved to be fruitless. The one that currently drips into his body...proving the same. Because the numbers tell us....we have to keep running.
I don't think that I could possibly count the hours that I spent in this clinic prior to the transplant....it was so so many....5 years worth of so many.... And in the months after the transplant, after we had gone home...I didn't see the walls of these infusion rooms...at all. I had only began to accept the fact that maybe Parklen was better.....fixed....maybe.
The Henderson's worked their way toward a new normal, one that included things like school drop offs and after school clubs... homework, and friends......normal...or almost...
I didn't want to be here again. And I HATE how comfortable it is for us. They all know us, I cannot take a trip down the hall without running into a friend Ive made over the years...The normal from years passed is falling back into place....and I desperately want anything but....
I want to send my kids to school...all of them,
I want to plan my schedule around our family and not around Denver trips....
I want to go to bible study and hang out with friends....
I want Parklen to bust up his knees on the playground...
I want to go back to our somewhat normal existence...
So, badly.
We are going to pretend that all is well for this weekend.... because we are celebrating a certain almost 10 year old as a family....
But,
When we get home on Sunday...I will unpack our things...to wash and repack. Parklen and I will head back down on Monday and spend a couple of days here.... Parklen will go under again to retrieve more bone marrow for testing....in hopes that a new clue might present itself.... and then, we will go from there.
So for now, we will just keep on running....and hope that our toward nowhere...becomes a toward somewhere.....
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