Tonight's picture was taken in January of 2009. We took Mattie out to lunch on the hospital campus to celebrate the fact that he completed a long bone scan without needing sedation. Scans were difficult for Mattie, given his experience with his initial scans during diagnosis. It took a lot of patience and a lot of distractions to keep Mattie calm in these scanning machines. In addition, Mattie couldn't eat or drink anything from midnight the night before, in order for the contrast for the scan to work effectively. Mattie's child life specialist and art therapists promised Mattie they would go out to lunch with him if he managed his way through the scan. Mattie was determined! Mattie had a great lunch at the Japanese tatami table and got to have all the shrimp he wanted.
Quote of the day: Nobody can fully understand the meaning of love unless he's owned a dog. A dog can show you more honest affection with a flick of his tail than a man can gather through a lifetime of handshakes. ~ Gene Hill
After my usual chores today, I ran out to get gas for the car and to mail some bills. I can safely say that our neighborhood does a lousy job plowing the streets. When I moved outside the beltway of Washington, DC it NEVER dawned on me that the county wouldn't plow the roads for snow! Instead our neighborhood relies on private contracts through our Home Owners Association. In my opinion this company gets a D, and I would fire them and start looking for other options. Others may not mind the poor conditions on the roads, but given that I have little to no experience driving on snow/ice covered roads, I feel absolutely limited. But I did a great job with our driveway and have no problem getting up and down it! So one problem checked off my long, long list.
Later today, I took my parents out to brunch. We go out only once a week now, and we go to the same place each Sunday. While dining out, I couldn't help but observing couples dining together, or larger parties having a great time conversing. Truthfully seeing this struck me in the heart! I felt like my whole body was aching, because in comparison to these individuals my life is a mess, it is in shambles and I range from coping to wondering if I can make it to tomorrow. Certainly everyone has their burdens and many people cover it well, so truthfully I do not know what my fellow diners are coping with, but from my perspective, I have had MORE THAN enough in my life and I wonder how much more I can endure? At times I wonder what on earth I did to deserve all of this. Again, there are no answers, just like there has never been an answer to why Mattie got cancer and died.
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