Maintenance

Current Day: November 17, 2016
I'm all out of order on my blog but I wanted to document my current feelings right now. I will have to catch up on everything that's happened up to this point week by week. It's going to take time. SO much has happened. 

Hudson finally reached maintenance (officially two days ago!) We had been counting down the days until maintenance for months! It felt like once we got there, we would get a lot of our "normal lives" back. We made a point to announce it and make it a big celebration. Hudson started kindergarten last week and it was really sad but exciting to see him go because he was beyond excited for it! He couldn't wait to be social again and be at school with Parker and ride the bus home (that part was probably disappointing for him.) He missed half of the day on Monday for his clearance doctor appointment and then missed Tuesday because he got a spinal tap and chemo to start out the day. On Wednesday, we made a huge deal of it being his first day of maintenance! The school had Parker come on the morning news broadcast with all of the kids anchoring the news wearing #hudsonisawesome #strongasSTEELE shirts. Parker congratulated him on 

being cancer free (he's been cancer free but we are celebrating maintenance... the kids got the gist that it was an important day for us anyway.) He hand delivered balloons and some yummy snacks from my friend and one of the sixth grade teachers, Mrs. Klem, who also orchestrated the news thing for Parker to go on and celebrate Hudson's big milestone. His class made him a huge poster that read "Congrats Hudson!" with all of their names on it and they made him cards too. He felt really special.

 I thought to myself "Cool, this is going to be so much better now. I'm going to go to the gym, go grocery shopping with just one kid, do lunch dates with friends again and get my life back!" NOPE. It was so anticlimatic. He has been on steroids since Tuesday (after getting his chemo treatment) and will be on them until Saturday. His side effects definitely kicked in today (day 3) to say the least. As I tried to get him and Parker ready and off to school this morning, our house was crazy town with a bunch of whining, tantrums, no one listening to me which led to me yelling at them and was not a good way to start out the day. When I dropped Parker off at school, I pulled up to the kindergarten drop off and told Hudson to follow all the kids back to the kinder playground. I thought he knew where he was going. I wanted to be safe so I followed him in my van around the corner up towards the front office to make sure he got there safely. I saw him start to cry and run towards me while saying he didn't know where to go. I parked my car and walked him into his classroom. He seemed to be fine by then as I talked to his teacher for a minute, warning her about his possible side effects from the steroids (tired, cranky, hungry, etc.) He then decided he DID NOT want to be at school and didn't want me to go. I tried to console him but he seemed pretty upset. I told his teacher I was going to go and he would probably cry for a minute and would calm down. I stood behind the corner and listened to him cry for me. It broke my heart. I wasn't sure if I should go rescue him or make him stay. It's hard to know what I should let him get away with and when I should just give him his way and be sympathetic towards how he's feeling. I ended up leaving and headed home to grab a couple things and headed straight for the gym. I couldn't wait to get all of my aggression out during kickboxing! I had waited all week for this! FREEDOM is what I was yelling in my mind as I drove to the gym with just Everett in the back seat wearing his spider-man jammies. Right as I pulled into the gym parking lot, I got a call from Jill (the front office lady-- who is awesome) that Hudson was not having it today and I needed to come pick him up. 

Talk about frustrating! I made a U-Turn and drove 12 minutes back to the school. As I drove, I called my mom to find my Dad's comforting voice answer the phone. I complained, vented and cried about how hard life was and how tired I was and how it just sucks sometimes. I felt selfish for being mad that I couldn't go to the gym and wasn't going to be able to go to my good friend, Erin's, birthday lunch/baby shower with Shari and Lexi. I just wanted some time to myself. Was that too much to ask? Steve has been out of town since Tuesday and that's the second time he has gone out of town this month. Life just started to feel so overwhelming and unbearable. I felt like I was going to crash and burn. I felt so defeated, like I lost my identity in a way. Then the tears came streaming down, uncontrollably. My mom told me maybe I should pull over and I told her I was fine.

I got myself together, dried my tears, patted my face, unbuckled Everett (who was still in his pajamas) and walked into the front office to find Hudson sitting with his teachers aid, Ms. Ashley, eating pretzels and no longer crying. I asked him again if he was sure he wanted to leave. He was going to miss seeing the firefighters come talk to his class today. He was dead set on leaving. So I checked him out of school. I knew I needed to get some exercise or I would lose my marbles today. So we went back to the gym and I made it to half of the kickboxing class. Anything is better than nothing. I'll take what I can get. And for me, it was needed for my sanity. 

My dad called me back and said that he cancelled his meetings that day and him and my mom and Brianne were going to come out and watch Everett and Hudson so I could go to my friends lunch thing. I told them they didn't have to do that. I would just bring them but he said "Hey, I'm a dad and a papa before work or church. You come before anyone or anything else." He is such a good dad. I hit the jackpot in the parent department. It made my heart so grateful and happy to be getting a short break. 

They showed up a little later and I was able to shower and get ready without any interruptions which was glorious in and of itself! I went to lunch, had a delicious salmon salad at Rosas and great conversation and a few laughs with my good friends and came home at the same time of my parents. Right when I walked in the door, it was pretty much back to meltdowns and crying. Everett broke Hudsons spaceship lego that he worked so hard to make which resulted in Hudson screaming at the top of his lungs and saying what a dumb baby brother Everett was. I laid Everett down, who was being a complete pill, for a much needed nap. It took Hudson 20 minutes to calm down. I tried to help him rebuild his legos but couldn't figure out exactly how he wanted it which caused him to scream and cry even louder. It was the effects of his steroids that were making him feel so completely out of control of his emotions. He finally calmed down and I had some peace and quiet to write this post. Now Everett is screaming at the top of his lungs already in his bed. I know I will come back and read this post one day when life is easier and be glad that I got through this crazy hard time. But for now-- I'm having a pity party for myself. The sun will come out tomorrow is what I need to be singing right now. 

So far-- maintenance kind of stinks. Steroids are the devil.

The end.