Tired of Tired

I try not to complain and count my blessings, but forgive me for a lapse. I am just tired. So very tired. After a night in the hospital and an afternoon at the dr's office, I was counting the minutes until Friday night. Thursday, I ran for six miles and it felt good to pound my frustrations out on the pavement. It started to look up.

Fast forward to Saturday night when a seemingly healthy Tommy put his head down on the couch and I asked if he was okay. He grabbed his ear and said, Ear hurts, mama. I said, no. no. no, your ear does not hurt, and gave him crazy eyes. He nodded and said, Ear hurt, while tugging his right ear and just like Monday, he went from fine to lying on my shoulder crying. Off to urgent care where of course we find out that he has an ear infection. Stop at the pharmacy for antibiotics and by the time we got home and got the boys to bed, it was 9.

I just want calm, I guess. Normalcy. It's been a year since his seizures started and I finally felt like I was finding that, but now I'm not, back to teetering on the brink of exhaustion. Tomorrow morning, we go to University of Chicago for an EEG. It's not a sleep deprivation EEG, thank goodness, but my head hurts just thinking about it. There's bloodwork, too, and I'm sure he won't be thrilled at the prospect of needles. Then there's follow up appointments to discuss the results that we hope and pray are normal. I'm trying to not stress about the eventual medical bills, because the important thing is a healthy child, but it's hard.

People keep telling me to take care of myself, too, but I don't know how. I'm finding it harder and harder to even carve out the time to run or to sleep, really, because someone needs to make lunches and clean floors and do laundry and teach for eight hours a day. And of course, I would love to get a hair cut or a pedicure, but there's the aforementioned worry about medical bills, so that's not happening anytime soon.

Last night waiting for our prescription, I held Tommy. I looked up and met eyes with an older woman across from me. We smiled at each other and she said, I was just watching you with him and thinking of my son, of how fast it goes. It seems like he was just little, but he's 24 now. Treasure this time.

I know this. I know someday he'll be 24 and I'll be thinking back to the fall that he was two and I won't remember how tired I was, but right now, it's hard. Hard to stem the rush of tears that keep coming to my eyes, hard to temper my impatience at the kids, at laundry that never ends, at life in general. I know this is just a season and such a short season, but my heart and mind and body are so tired.