Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2003. Mattie was about a year and a half old and as you can see he was sitting in the tub fully clothed and with no water. What do you think he was doing? You may think he was playing but that wasn't the reason he was in the tub.
Until Mattie learned to talk (which happened maybe at 2.5 years...he was a late talker) he would have emotional tirades. They were much more volatile than a tantrum, and he had many of them in one day. They were exhausting, overwhelming, and frustrating to a new mom. It also involved biting! If the melt down was so significant, I would lift Mattie into the tub to distract and change his point of view. I never left the bathroom, but there was no talking involved. I would observe Mattie to make sure he wasn't hurting himself, and what always was the by-product of this tub time was Mattie would begin playing with all the toys around the tub. He would calm down on his own, and then we could talk about what happened. I learned that confining him to the tub somehow was like a reset button, because there wasn't other stimulus around and he could work out his frustration.
Quote of the day: Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards. ~ Vladimir Nabokov
Today's weather was absolutely awful! I am NOT a rain person by any stretch of the imagination, but it is much worse when you are a dog owner and you have to walk outside in the rain! It was non-stop today and it never let up. Sunny and I managed to walk four miles today in this, and though he wasn't bothered in the least, I hated it. I still feel soaked to the bone. For Sunny it was business as usual, which is just fascinating to me.
Tomorrow, I am heading back to Mattie's school to talk to the same technology class that I met with last Wednesday. Last Wednesday, I introduced the class to a parent and childhood cancer survivor. Tomorrow, I am scheduled to talk about Mattie, his cancer battle, and the Foundation. In addition, this class is working on a 3-D model of an MRI machine for MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. The class wants to talk about their project, where they are at with it, and to get my feedback. Having survived MULTIPLE MRIs with Mattie, I definitely know the extreme anxious reaction children can have to these scans. There is a lot to be said to preparing children for what is about to happen and also I can't emphasize this enough.... but a patient, calm, and child friendly tech can make all the difference in the world. So the 3D model has great potential for helping to explain the process to children before they endure a scan.
It is Jey and so many of Mattie's caregivers who helped Peter and I see that cancer treatment is NOT just about the medicine. In fact, as the years go by since Mattie's death, the medicine goes out of my head, but how personnel treated Mattie and us.... is never forgotten. I believe one of the reasons we are financial donors to Georgetown University Hospital is because of the quality and character of the people working there and the way they connected with us. Certainly we needed the medicine, but it how you survive day to day with cancer that is the most complex! This is where psychosocial professionals and compassionate personnel come into play and make a true measurable difference.
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