The Beginning of Tristan’s Journey

 I’ve decided to start blogging again. I used to blog and then stopped. But in light of the recent events, I’ve decided to start again.

On Monday, January 30th Tristan had a doctors appointment for lactose intolerance symptoms. He said he had the symptoms his whole life. Poor guy, he has a seriously high pain tolerance so he doesn’t tell us anything until it’s too late. He suffers unnecessarily. So for years he would eat dairy, he said mostly it would happen with milk, and he would get stomachaches about 2 hours later. Well, he tells me about it mid-January and the earliest I could get an appointment with the doctor was January 30th. Sunday before the appointment he begs me to to miss school for the whole day. Mind you, the appointment was at 8am so really he had no reason to. He was going to the appointment for about 45 minutes and then straight back to school. But I let my kids miss school for 1-2 days a year for no reason at all except that they want to stay home so I said yes and decided this was one of those days. We got up and I looked a hot mess- no shower, sweats, and hair in a not-cute messy bun because I thought this was an in and out appointment where I could come home and get ready for work afterwards. We showed up and they called him back. They took his weight and height and then showed us to the room. Then they did the standard blood pressure, oxygen reading stuff they normally do. That’s when everything changed. The nurse asked Tristan if he was nervous for the appointment. He looked confused and said no. Then she went and got the doctor. He came in and looked at the oxygen reading and asked the same thing. He again said no. He then explain to me that Tristan’s heart rate should be at 70 and it was at 150 which meant something was very wrong. He said that we needed to go to the Children’s Medical Center ER immediately. So off we went.

Funny thing is, Tristan was fine the whole time. He was actually being funny even. He said something like “So do we need to set up another appointment about my lactose intolerance or what?” He was completely fine.

We got to the ER and they did what our doctor did and discovered the same thing. But they ran some tests. Then they had to do some scans. Honestly we’ve been to the ER before and it’s taken forever to get anything done so I thought I had some time. Vincent had met us there so I told him I was going to run home and change since I looked horrible and was embarrassed that people had to see me like that plus I had to drop off money for the bar (I had gotten someone to work my shift at the bar while we were driving to the ER). But apparently the signs that Tristan had set off alarms that alerted departments and doctors and his tests were rushed and before I could get back to the hospital, Vincent was calling me. “Babe, where are you? You have to get here quick. Oncology’s here and they have to talk to us.” My stomach dropped and I started sobbing. I luckily was about 8 minutes away but to say that I was blindsided by the news is an understatement. 

No one is prepared for a cancer prognosis. No one. It’s not like you ever think about your kid having the possibility of dying. So when Vincent said Oncology was in the room waiting on me, we were both sobbing on the phone. We didn’t know why but everyone knows Oncology is never good. Your first thought is “Why him? Why not me? I’m older, I can take it. Take me. I deserve it anyways.” It’s a rush of emotions that I do not wish on anyone. Vincent is in the hallway trying to be brave and I’m sobbing in my car like a little baby. I was not expecting it. I was expecting something dumb and minor that would make us wait in the waiting room for 9 hours but not something serious that would jump us ahead of everyone. 

I get to the hospital and I’m running to the room where Vincent said they were. True to what Vincent said, the doctors were there waiting and joking with Tristan. They then told Tristan that they were going to talk to us outside about boring grown up stuff and asked if that was okay. He shrugged and continued watching TV. We go into a conference room and they pull in a TV screen and my heart sank. I knew this was serious. They said they did scans of Tristan and they found a mass in his chest, just to the left of his heart and also a mass in his spleen. They explained that because of the specific lymph nodes that were swollen they were 100% sure this was cancer. Vincent and I lost it. But as I’m sure with anyone that’s not in the medical field, we questioned it. “How can you be sure if you haven’t tested it?” Honestly, probably because of shock I don’t remember a lot of the conversation that happened. I know we went back and forth with questioning because we couldn’t quite believe that without a biopsy they knew it was cancer. Our doctor was extremely patient and amazing. She answered each question again and again as if it were the first time she were being asked it. She said she didn’t know without a biopsy for sure which type of cancer it was but she was fairly certain it was lymphoma and it was around stage 4. To be perfectly honest I didn’t do a whole lot of talking, Vincent did. I don’t know if it was shock but I just sat there listening. Vincent then asked the million dollar question “What does Stage 4 mean? When we think Stage 4 we think…..” he couldn’t even finish it and started crying again. She then explained that kids have a higher recovery rate and if this cancer was what she thought it was there was an 85% recovery rate. This definitely helped tremendously with our panic. We calmed down quite a bit. Then she asked us how we wanted to approach it with Tristan. We said we would tell him and let her know when we’ve told him so she could tailor her talks around that. She then told us the game plan. Tristan would get a biopsy the following day to confirm the type of cancer and stage. Then once that was complete chemotherapy would begin. He would have 3 days of 4 hour treatments of chemotherapy. He would also need a PET scan (a scan of the entire body) and the Children’s Hospital in Dallas is the only one that has this machine. She said we would start Day 1 chemo in Plano then transfer to Dallas for the PET scan and finish the chemo there. 

We get back to the room and Tristan is watching TV. This part is foggy because over the last few weeks we’ve spent so much time in the hospital and probably the trauma has caused some memory loss. But after a few hours Tristan asked us when we were leaving. We then explained than they found a mass in his chest and in his spleen and that it was cancer. We held our breaths. And our brave, hilarious, oldest child’s response was “Well, I guess I’m missing more than 1 day of school.” 

Tristan has had a sense of humor throughout all this. I would say more so than normal. I don’t remember him being this funny, honestly. The next step in all of this was telling Brayden and Caleb. We decided that since Vincent and I were taking turns going home and being with Brayden and Caleb that Vincent would just tell them on his turn that night. So we FaceTime Caleb and Brayden with Tristan on the phone. They’re worried about their brother and ask what’s going on. By this time, they know he’s in the hospital and will be there for awhile but not sure why. Brayden asks “Tristan, what’s wrong with you?” And Tristan responds “Guess what guys?” Pauses while they stare at him blankly. “I got the cancer”. Vincent and I look at each other and have to stop each other from laughing. Brayden and Caleb are half-laughing but also asking “Really?” Tristan keeps telling them it’s true and then Vincent tells them that he’ll talk to them about it when he gets home in an hour. But for that brief moment of time the boys are joking about Tristan having cancer. I don’t know if that sounds bad to people but I really don’t care. I love that my son chose humor to deal with this horrible disease. And his brothers communicated right back with him the same way. For a moment, everything was normal again and we were just in a hospital and they were just at home, laughing and making fun of each other.

The first day of chemo is always the hardest. Having done 2 rounds of it now, I can confirm that. The doctors told me that between him being a teenager and the chemo drugs, I wouldn’t be able to tell a difference of which is which. But Tristan is my gentle, sweeter child. So when he was sharp, rude and impatient with me, I knew it was the drugs. It was not fun. 

The first round in the hospital was not fun. For several reasons. One, if you know me well enough you know that a majority of my family is horrible. Not in the sense that they say mean things but at their core, they’re terrible people. You can judge me however you want, and that’s fine but unless you walk in my shoes you don’t know my journey. Because of the extreme circumstances I decided to let them back in my life at the hospital. But that door shut just as quickly as it opened. I won’t go into the details on here but if you know me, you may get to hear the story of these people that I am related to by blood only. They made our stay in the hospital just that more miserable, if possible.

Hospitals are also not fun because people are constantly poking and prodding you at all hours of the night. Tristan’s hemoglobin level should be above a 7 and it was at a 4 so he had to have a blood transfusion. But during the blood transfusion, which happened during the hours of 11pm-4am, he spiked a fever of 104.5 and then dropped down to 93.5. If you didn’t know if you drop below 96, it’s just as bad as having a fever. So anytime this happens during a blood transfusion it’s bad. So they had a crap ton of people in there trying to get him cold when he was hot and then warm him up when he was cold. Needless to say no one slept during that night. 

Also, as a 1st world problem Tristan’s PS5 doesn’t connect to the Wi-Fi of the hospital. This is because for the Wi-Fi it pops up with a window you have to agree to terms of the Wi-Fi and for the PS5 it doesn’t have access to browsers so he was using our hotspot the entire hospital stay. It was high speed for 2 days and then super low speed for the rest of the time so he couldn’t play his games. We figured out this last hospital stay from a friend that we could connect to the phone line and that worked and saved us! Again, 1st world problems but problems just the same. Tristan is what I lovingly call a housecat and plays video games and then comes out and watches TV with me and Vincent every now and so for him, Wi-Fi is a big deal. Me being the Mama Bear that I am, I called IT and had them try to brainstorm on how to connect his PS5. Of course, they didn’t come up with the phone connection thenthough. But now that we know we can connect to a phone line, I think we’re good from here on out.

I will say that even though this disease has an 85% recovery rate it doesn’t stop you from thinking about that 15%. You think about it all the time. I’ll be waiting on customers at the bar and have to go in the back and have a moment to cry because I just can’t bear the thought of being the 15%. The 15% keeps you up at night. It has me sobbing in my car too and on my way home from work. There’s no guarantee that we’re the 85% so the 15% is what worries me. The worst part is not being able to have these moments with your husband. At least in the hospital we were together and could cry together. Now we are working, either he’s working at night or I am. Or we have other obligations that we are doing. We don’t have a moment to process this stuff together. It’s so important to have a partner to process this stuff with. It’s easy to try to be strong for your kids but for your partner, you don’t have to be. You get to hold each other and cry and worry about that 15% and hope and pray that God will protect your child and he will be one of the 85%. But right now, we have to work so much we don’t get to have time for that so I do it at times when it’s not convenient. I pray all day every day for my child and my family that we will get through this and be strong for it. I think we will. So far I see my family and am grateful for our family of 5 and our bonds. We have so much fun together. I think that’s what will carry us through all of this. Humor and the ability to laugh through the tears. Hug your kids and loved ones and be grateful that they are in your lives. It can all change very quickly. 

The Best Part of Being a Mom? Torturing your Husband

Every morning of a school week that I go into work is exactly the same. So much so that I can actually give you a time frame of it. Well, the early schedule just started a couple weeks ago. But literally the activities are exactly the same now as they were if you fast forward the time a little.
4:20am- my alarm starts going off. I will not lie, I hit snooze quite a bit.
5:08am- I jump in the shower
5:18am- Brayden stumbles, half-drunk, into my bathroom and will, sleep-drunk, asks me stupid questions. This is also done with a diaper on that he has decided to empty his morning dump into instead of the toilet (yes he is a 4 year old that has morning dumps before 6am)
5:22am- My amazing smelling, expensive shampoo does not cover the smell of shit
5:32am- The younger of the two dogs has decided she wants to know what's going on with all the ruckus in the bathroom this early in the morning but may or may not have forgotten to go outside the doggy door and taken a piss. Now there's piss on the bathroom rug that I will eventually step on when I get out of the shower.
5:46am- Brayden has grown tired of my fake mom answers to his dumb questions and decided it was a good time to wake his brothers up.  The brothers were obviously not happy about being woken up 10 minutes before their usual time so they appropriately hit Brayden in whatever appendix is near.
5:48am- Brayden is still screaming and crying like he's been shot in WWII and there's no chance of survival.
5:49am- Brayden decides to take matters into his own hands and gets the biggest toy he can find in the game room, goes back to the "chosen" brother's room and throws it at his head. It doesn't hit the head but does hit a part of the body.
5:50am- 2 kids are screaming and yelling as though I threatened to take away their access to YouTube. This, all the while, I am blow drying my hair and pretending that I don't have kids and that I don't hear faint screaming between different angles of the blow drying experience.
5:51am- 1 of the 2 kids screaming decides that his life is worth more than being attacked by his brother and decides to turn his brother in. This leads to the other realizing that he's about to be tattled on and tries to outrun the other to the bathroom.
5:51:30am- The kids slam open my bathroom door (no, I didn't lock it because that would be too smart) and start screaming their opening, closing, and rebuttal remarks at the same time. I take it in with such words as "Oh my goodness" and "No sir, not in this house", then I quickly ask the one in the diaper why he pooped his diaper. He apologizes and says he couldn't help it and the fight with his brother is forgotten. Now the youngest can't live with a dirty diaper any minute longer and demands a change right then.
5:53am- I am changing a dirty diaper with a towel wrapped around me and my hair half blown dry. The poop has dried on Brayden's butt so I am having to scrape it off through the baby wipe to get it to come off. He is screaming like I am torturing him.
5:54am- I take orders for breakfast. And by orders, I mean, which of the 6 cereals do you want?
5:55am- They are watching TV and too busy to answer me.
5:56am- I scream again and again and again.
5:59am- They finally tell me.
5:59:30am I pour their cereal and pull out TV trays to give it to them on (less fighting to get them to move it to the dining room table; remember I have to get ready for work too!)
6:02am- I am back in my bathroom and discover the dog pee
6:07am- Finished cleaning dog pee and finish blow drying my hair. Start my make-up.
6:17am- Fighting erupts from downstairs because they decided to play a video game instead of watching TV and Caleb has usually decided to light Tristan's house on fire in Minecraft. I wait until it sounds violent before I break concentration with my makeup.
6:19am- I hear Tristan getting hysterical as Caleb continues to laugh instead of apologize to Tristan about the burned down house. I come to the balcony where I have a perfect view of both of them and yell at them to turn it off and get their backpacks on.
6:24am- I hurriedly put on clothes for work and hopefully remember deodorant.
6:27am- I shove Lunchables into their lunchboxes and throw them into their backpacks and zip it up.
6:29am- I yell my reminder again to load into my car and to remember their back packs. I remind them that seat belts need to be on when I get in there.
6:31am- No one has listened to me and has found other things to do except get in the car: go to the bathroom, find a snack, research to find out why their pillow was missing from their bed last night, turn the TV back on and watch it, or take their shoes off and relax.
6:31:10am I lose my shit.
6:31:12am- I scream like a crazy person and tell everyone they better get in the car or I'm going to ground them for life, quite possibly cutting it short too.
6:31:56am- They look at me like I've lost my shit. But also fear kicks in and they scurry into the car as quickly as they can.
6:39am- I finally have everyone buckled in and am ready to go but can't get the freaking garage door to close. I push the remote in my car at least 38 times.
6:41am- I get out of the car and manually push the button in the garage to get it to shut, hop over the invisible laser line that will make the garage go back up again, and get back into my car. My kids are laughing hysterically at me, telling me how dumb I looked hopping over nothing.

I tell you all of this not to pity me, but to understand. Understand that my husband comes home later and listens to me say "I almost killed your children this morning, like 4 times" and his response is "If you want to switch and I'll get the kids ready in the morning, I can. It's really not that hard for me. I don't know why it's so hard for you" and I just seethe.

I seethe until it's time for him to put them to bed. Then I quietly grab my glass of wine and sit on the couch to relax and to listen for what will eventually come. Then I hear is "CALEB, WHAT IN GOD'S NAME IS WRONG WITH YOU?" or "TRISTAN GET IN YOUR BED NOW AND NO YOU CAN'T HAVE ANOTHER GLASS OF WATER" or "I WILL TAKE AWAY ANY AND ALL ELECTRONICS, SO HELP ME GOD" or even "CALEB, NO MORE QUESTIONS!". That's when I smile and just enjoy the moment........does that make me a sadist?

My Relationship with My Mom

So I'm 34 years old and I've realized that the relationship between my mom and I is in need of a major repair. To say that we've had disagreements between us, is to put it lightly.

I am the oldest of 6 children, with 2 sets of twins. I am not saying this to emphasize how big my family is and how I was the oldest of this big family. I am saying this because I am the oldest child, and that also comes with a lot of pressure. I am a child that is achievement-oriented.  I am assertive and dominant. I am respectful of authority. I was a great student. I am motivated. I make a great leader. I am always fearful in new situations. I was always mature for my age. And my confidence has always been higher than it probably should have been. This all made me have exactly the same qualities that oldest children tend to have and also led to me feeling very responsible for everything that happened to my family. At an early age my siblings referred to me as "Mommy Melle". This probably seemed adorable to everyone that used this name, but to me it was a name that further pressured me. I was the "Mom' of the house and everyone expected as much. As you can probably guess, there should only be 1 Mom of the house.

I always thought that my mom was in competition with me. She always seemed to "1 up" me and it never felt that she could fully appreciate my stories, that she always listening to see what details seemed important and then make herself seem better than me in that situation. This caused years of turmoil with my mom.....years. As I grew to be the 34 years old I am today, I have heard all sorts of relationships women have with their moms. There are all types that seemed to range, from amazing to never meeting them. I was always secretly envious of the friends that had that "great" relationship with their moms. I had always wanted that, dreamed it, and then looked at it wistfully, eventually. It seemed magical that these women could go shopping, see movies, have drinks, and eat food and never fight with their moms. The fights where it gets so bad that someone has to leave. Not the fight about not noticing a haircut. No, the ones where someone has to leave, shaking their heads and wishing things were different. It never seemed like women with the great relationships with their moms could ever imagine a world where they leave their mother alone at dinner, too mad to finish. Of course if anything could be done to improve the relationship is something I would hope could be done, but definitely don't believe it to have a great likelihood.

Then yesterday I get an email from my Mom, addressed to the whole family. She was speaking about her Mom, whom she finally had gotten in contact with after 30 years, who was finally speaking to her again. But the circumstances that my Mom had to go to made me realize just how much my Mom and I had in common. My mom's sister, Bonnie, hated my mom. This is because of reasons that even I don't understand. But because of this hate, my Aunt Bonnie refused to tell my Mom of her own mother's location and contact information. Like, I'm talking years. Years of a hate between my Mom and her sister over things that happened in childhood, but affected all the relationships in the family. There was also hate between my Mom and her Mom because of whatever disagreement they deemed relevant enough to not talk to each other for 30 years. I only have 1 side of the argument so it only seems fair to say that both parties never tried to reconcile. Well, my Mom did eventually. After like 20 years, I believe. 10 years ago my mom tried to contact my grandmother. She'd mail her letters with no response. Like, ever. Like, sent letter after letter after letter after letter and got no response. Like, my grandmother had 6 grandchildren, 2 sets of twins, that she didn't give two shits about.  But my Mom kept it up. My mom decided that the stupid fights over the years were not worth it. So yesterday when I heard my Mom finally got to talk to her Mom, my first thought drifted toward the stupidity on the part of my Mom for pursuing a lifeless relationship, until I realized something. I was mad. Mad at my Aunt Bonnie and my grandmother for not including my mom all these years. Mad that my Aunt Bonnie and my grandmother were actively trying to make sure my mom was in the dark about her own family. Mad that my Aunt Bonnie and grandmother could not try to get to know the 6 children, 2 sets of twins, that my mother brought into this world. When people put themselves before family I have learned that they actually lead very lonely lives. That's what these 2 women are- 2 lonely women trying to make my mother feel like horseshit.
That's when I realized it. I realized that I had never stood up for my mom. Throughout the years of our arguing and nonsense, I realized that I never stood up for her. Not once. She was either wrong or my dad had somehow just managed to lose to her. It was never because she was a woman that stood up for herself even though the odds weren't in her favor. It was never to tell her that she was an amazing woman for being the better person in most situations. It was never to acknowledge that she stood up for herself, no matter what. My mom didn't have the best of childhoods but she learned a lot about herself then: to never keep quiet and always stick up for what you believe in. My mom is nowhere near quiet and have never backed down from a fight for as long as I've known her. I learned yesterday that my Mom and I might not be the same person but I am a pretty amazing woman because of her. She had a pretty big hand in shaping me, even if her hand got bit quite a bit in doing so. This doesn't mean that the relationship between my Mom and I magically heals but I can at least try to move in a direction of loving and accepting my mother for the good things she is and not focus on the bad things as much.

My Aunt Pat Pierce, a bad-ass 79 year old woman

My Aunt Pat. She’s turning 80 on May 7th and she is absolutely amazing. I don’t think I’m going to be able to capture all that is Patsy Pierce but I’m gonna try. She’s on social media and has a voice that is demanding to be heard. Seriously, she comments on everything. From recipes to politics, she has an opinion or comment on everything. And not in an annoying way but in an intriguing way. I actually read what’s she’s commented it on. And I don’t do that normally. She’s such a strong woman. She’s had an amazing life with some pretty extraordinary things happen. And her views reflect just that.

Aunt Pat is my grandpa’s sister.  She has a daughter - my cousin Pam (my dad’s cousin), who has a son, Little Ritchie. Of course, Aunt Pat did an amazing job of raising Pam who in return did an amazing job of raising Little Ritchie. That side of the family is pure gold. She only had 1 job her entire life. She worked for AT&T, or BellSouth as it used to be called, for over 40 years. She first started out as an operator but then decided she wanted to get her hands dirty. So she decided to be a technician in the field and help set up telephones for customers. Definitely not the “normal” job for a woman in her time. When most women were at home raising babies, my Aunt Pat was installing telephones. See, what did I tell you?? She also is an amazing cook. Like good Southern cooking good, or as I call it, Heaven. She was married to Pam’s father and when that didn’t work out, she decided to get a divorce. She was definitely a rebel during her time and did everything she wanted or believed in. I definitely look up to her and hope to be exactly like her when I’m 79. I’m just waiting for her to get a Twitter account. She’d be a hit.

She also loves her family fiercely. She’s the first person to comment on all of our posts and she’s also the person that sent a care package to my son while he was in the hospital. She lives in Newnan, Georgia. I didn’t tell my relatives in Georgia about Brayden except by way of Facebook. She’s amazing.  You know those relatives you had growing up that you could always count on for a best gift ever? That was her. Aunt Pat.

I hope when I get to be her age, I am as smart and suave as she is with technology as well as generous and kind and beautiful. I know that she has a lot of love to give and I hope one day that I’m half the woman she is, plus a third of the cook.She has an amazing dessert recipe called Virginia Crisps. So addictive. I could literally clear a pan out. Aunt Pat is truly an angel trying to make a difference in this world. Become her friend on Facebook to see what a 79 year old woman does with Facebook. Read all of the comments she’s made and the pages she’s shared. It’s true genius. Remember. She’s my Aunt Pat.  :)

 

Bubba Orders Pizza

If you don’t know my son Caleb, also known as Bubba, you don’t know what you’re missing. He is the smartest kid I’ve ever met. He is also the funniest. He is always entertaining. He also makes me want to pull my hair out. I know this is exactly how my parents felt about my brother, David. They’re very similar. This story happened a few months ago but if you haven’t heard it, I wanted to share.

Bubba is obsessed with food. I can’t blame him. He likes the most delicious foods that most of us enjoy- pizza, cookies, chips, and popsicles - to name a few. Of course he doesn’t get them every day or even often for that matter. So that’s when Bubba took matters into his own hands. One day when Vincent and I didn’t feel like cooking, we ordered pizza on our iPad. This detail is important. We picked the pizzas we wanted and saved our credit card information. A couple days later Vincent was at home with the kids. All of a sudden the doorbell rang. Vincent opened the door to find a woman holding 3 pizzas and 3 chocolate lava cakes. She read him the order and then the total. Vincent told her that she made a mistake. She confirmed the address. He again said that he didn’t order the pizza. The woman confirmed the last 4 digits of the credit card used. That’s when Tristan spoke up, “Caleb ordered the pizza on your iPad”. Vincent then turned to the woman and explained the situation. She told him since the pizza was made, there was nothing that they could do. So Vincent signed for it and took the pizzas and chocolate lava cakes inside. Then he turned to Bubba, “Bubba, what did you do?” Bubba shrugged at first but then later told the story. He went on the iPad to play a game but then recognized the Domino’s app. He clicked it and saw an option to reorder the last order. Then he made sure there were 3 of them - one for himself, one for Tristan, and for Brayden. Then it asked if he wanted to ask a delicious chocolate lava cake to his order. I’m sure he thought “Heck yeah” as he ordered not 1 but 3. Again so that all the boys could enjoy their own delicious warm chocolate cake with a gooey center. He clicked submit, and since our credit card information was saved, it sent the order to the store to be delivered in 25-30 minutes. I’m not sure what he thought would happen once the pizza was delivered. I guess he thought that Vincent would sign for the pizzas and chocolate lava cakes and hand them over to the kids.

Well, that is what happened.

Bubba - 1, Carmelle & Vincent - 0.