Sunday, October 3, 2021

Sunday, October 3, 2021

Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2008. We took Mattie to the Inner Harbor in Baltimore that weekend to walk around, be by the water, and tour a railroad museum. We tried to normalize the weekend, but it was anything but normal. As Mattie was headed that coming week for his first limb salvaging surgery. In many ways, the first surgery was the beginning of a very bad psychosocial spiral downhill. Something that Mattie's treatment team did not prepare us for, but in all honesty, I am not sure they could have predicted Mattie's reaction. 

Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins. 

• Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 43,681,594
• Number of people who died from the virus: 701,163

After I wrote yesterday's blog, the side effects from taking Fosamax increased. I developed muscle and bone pain in my neck, shoulders, ribs, spine, and fingers. I looked like I had a bad case of arthritis, and moving was painful, not to mention breathing was hard. If this was not bad enough, I was also dealing with intense abdominal pain. So it's been quite the weekend. But I am not shy! I wrote the doctor yesterday and today and have been reporting out all my symptoms, because if this is what I will experience on a weekly basis, I am not taking this medication. There would be no quality of life, because it literally seems to take three days to recover from this pill. It is 7pm on Sunday, and I am doing better, not 100%, but better. 

The highlight of my day was this! We made breakfast and sat outside on the porch for probably over an hour. Indie and Sunny were with us and the whole family was on the porch. I needed this time to ease into the day because of the pain, stomach issues, and extreme exhaustion that resulted from this medication. 

Later in the day, Peter helped me put up photos of Mattie and some of his art work in my office. My office is like a Mattie gallery!

I snapped this photo this evening so you could actually see some of the art work. The pictures on the left over the bookcase are pictures of Mattie creations. Mattie painted many ceiling tiles in the hospital's outpatient clinic and after Mattie died the hospital gave me the tiles. Instead of keeping the HUGE tiles, I took photos of them and memorialized them this way. Over the door frame, you will see three pictures. Each was a leaf rubbing Mattie did in preschool. The backdrop for each leaf rubbing was a painting Mattie created. So I combined the two to make this composition.