Perspective

Caden gained weight this week.  He was 38.1 kg last week and is 38.9 kg today.  I was overjoyed to hear this news...until Sue started picking our week apart.

Apparently, I should have been giving him more medicine to help with the diarrhea- diarrhea that I thought was being controlled pretty well.  I don't like hearing that I should have done more, when I thought what I was doing was good.

Also, I should have been giving him more nausea meds so that he had a better chance of gaining more weight.  However, it's not as if he's sat around feeling nauseous all week; pretty much every single time he has thrown up it has been a surprise.  Playing Xbox, feeling great... puking into the bowl that once held your breakfast strawberries.  Walking around the Loop with dad, feeling great... puking in the gutter of the friendly neighbor that wanted to ask how you are feeling.  "Well, I was feeling fine until just now!" 

So, here's the struggle.  I'm supposedly supposed to give him nausea meds to help with the throwing up, however, nausea meds make him tired.  So, what, he sleeps all day so that he may not throw up, or has some sort of life, occasionally throwing up?  Which life should I choose for my son?  Because, everything that happens here at home is my choice.  Everything.  The medicines that pass his lips are given from my hands.  Do I make him sleep when he could be playing with his brothers and sisters, or do I make him sleep so that he can gain some weight?  I want him to gain weight, sure, but I also want him to have a life.  What use is there to have a healthy body that doesn't live a life?

Sometimes it is easier being in Seattle.  Their choices, their results, they're the bad guys.  I'm grateful to be home, but it's not like I get to just be his mom.  I'm the one that has always had to follow their rules, that has now been given free reign over something that I don't feel qualified to make decisions for. Where it was once, "Give him one pill to stop the diarrhea and see how it goes, making sure that you don't give too much, in case you go too far and stop him up," to "You can give it as much as you see fit, making sure that you give it to him enough to stop him up just enough, so that the diarrhea doesn't go too far." 

Being home is a whole new level of hardships.