I Can Do Hard Things

For some reason, this statement enters my head almost everyday lately. Along with some other favorite sayings such as, When the goin' get tough...the tough gets goin; Put your shoulder to the wheel; Things can always get worse and This too shall pass.

Obviously, things haven't exactly been easy for us lately. We've had a lot going on and I have had some really hard days. It's been like a three ring circus I tell ya. I have truly learned that sometimes things get worse before they get better. It really has been one thing after another these past few weeks. On top of the complications with Jaden, Rylee getting sick & the 2 infections I came up with in addition to trying to heal from a C-Section; Jace ended up with a fever of 103 last week and had glands the size of golf balls-so off to the Dr. with him, then by the weekend, I got a nasty cold- body aches, swollen glands, sore throat, runny nose, etc.

We've just been running mad from one appointment to the next. My 2 week check, Jaden's 2 week check and of course, turns out he's jaundice, so off to the hospital to check the bellirubin. An hour wait for the lab there. It came back too high, so of course, it required a follow-up lab check, so on Sunday off we go once again to the hospital. Thankfully it dropped and we don't have to do any treatment for it so far. But...once we were there, I realized that Rylee hadn't gotten her CBC (complete blood count) to see if her counts were good enough to start treatment on Monday. Trouble is- you have to have Dr.'s orders to get the lab work, so I call our Dr., he gives orders and wouldn't you know it- it's going to be another hour wait. You've got to be kidding me! I go off on a little tangent (a nice one), tell the receptionists that I think the hospital is understaffed because I waited 1 hour in admitting for Jaden's PKU, I waited 1 hour to get a jaundice test and now I'm being asked to wait another hour for the ER's short stay to draw a freakin' vile of blood. Nothing irritates me more than protocol and I deal with a lot of it.

Can you tell it's been a long week? Rylee started treatment this week & it's been a little draining. She had a 9 hour ordeal on Monday. Justin took her to the hospital for her spinal tap, which takes 2 hours and then I took her to her appointment/chemo and we were there for 7 hours! Yes, in one room at the Dr.'s office. Yes, we ate lunch there. Yes, we were there past office hours. First she's seen by the Dr. and they order all the drugs. Then Rylee had 2 pre-drugs (for anti-nausea and anti-allergy), then we have to wait a half an hour for them to kick in. Then she was given 2 kinds of chemo, one of which took an hour to administer. Then we had a mix of an antibiotic and hydration for 3-4 hours. {The long chemo is apparently quite toxic to the liver and bladder, so they hydrate right after to essentially get it in and then right out of the system.}Thankfully that one was just a one time deal. However, we've been there every single day this week for chemo & next week will be the same thing. The schedule alone is very hard to keep up with. You loose a lot of valuable time to accomplish other stuff.

I'm finding that sometimes life is just hard. It's hard to balance three kids. It's hard to have a sick child. It's hard to have a baby and to recover and to find a new routine. It's hard to have a demanding 4 year old. It's hard to know who to give your attention to. It's hard to have 3 kids in 4 years. It's hard to set limits/boundaries, teach respect and make your child do something besides watch TV. It's hard to keep up on the house, laundry, dishes, dinners, diaper changes, etc. I honestly feel like I bounce from one thing to the next all day long.

So why are we sometimes asked to do hard things? I guess so that we can know what hard is and learn and grow from it. I love this short story. I'm finding that it's very true.

Jelly Rolls & Doughnuts
By: Carol Lynn Pearson

Emily came down to breakfast, looked at her scrambled eggs, whole wheat muffin and orange sections, and exclaimed in he own witty way, “But- but I ordered a jelly roll and four doughnuts!”

Frankly, Emily, I don’t know anybody in this world who has gotten exactly what they ordered. And it’s probably a good thing.

Everything we want is on the menu- perfect health, the undying love of someone we adore, professional success, wealth, physical beauty. And if we’re fortunate, we’ll get some of those things.

But every once in a while we will look down at what’s served up on that cosmic tray-the cancer surgery, the six months of unemployment, the broken heart from a love that went wrong, the death of a dear one, a child who scars himself by destructive behavior- we will look down at those or other sorrows, then up at the great kitchen in the sky and exclaim, “But-but I didn’t order this! I ordered health and wealth and happiness! The waiter made a mistake!”

I don’t think exchanges will be made. They never have been for me. I have come to believe, however, that if we accept what’s in front of us-if we try to understand it and learn from it and grow through it, if we let it strengthen us-we can come to see that maybe, just maybe, we are being better nourished than if we’d been given the jelly roll and doughnuts.

My life has been changed by the experiences we've endured. Although I'd rather have the jelly roll and doughnuts these past few weeks, I don't doubt that there is a purpose to all of this.

Sorry about my rant- this is good therapy for me. This week, one of Rylee's nurses said, "Sometimes you just do what you've gotta do. So do it, but write it all down, because one day you'll want to go back and see that you really did it."

"Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be."
--Charles "Tremendous" Jones