Sleep, Love and Pray

This has to be the longest I have not blogged without the excuse of being on holidays. So I have adapted the famous book title to my own needs for a bullet point update.

Sleep. Not. Happening. I can feel I am at the end of my rope here, getting up at 6.30 with a full day of teaching, labs, meetings, research etc AFTER waking up 3-4-5 times a night will eventually take its toll. not every night. Some nights Martina will wake twice at the most. There is NO PATTERN. Last saturday night she woke every hour starting at 4am. Two nights ago she woke at 4 for a feed and then slept till 7.30. Her days are great, she is bubbly, happy and sleeps two/three naps no problem, of appropriate length. At least now for the last while she wakes at night but does not stay awake long at all. I know she will grow out of it eventually, it's not knowing when that will happen that is a killer.

Love. I love my family so much, I love what we have become and how we are growing together. I love watching the children interact, Oliver loves Martina and she thinks he is the most entertaining thing alive.He can do no wrong to her, even when I think he is a bit rough, she laughs her head off and wants more. He speaks to her in Italian most of the time, maybe because I of course do the same and he must think that is the only language she knows! And Oliver is really so sweet and I love how fascinated he is by all the things around him. Did I tell you that one day in the car he asked me "Mamma, where do the clouds go?" and he is fully bilingual, mixing and matching phrases at times and really trying hard to remember new long and difficult words.

At the beginning of November a little imaginary elf called Lenny joined our house. I want to make this a tradition for the time leading up to Christmas, when Santa sends his helpers to check on the children and their behaviour. Our Lenny is a nice, not scary looking elf, that eats coco pops and has a book to keep notes. He will at times be a bit naughty and perhaps tie a not in the leg of Oliver's pj, or put a sock in the sleeve of his jacket! But he can also be very good and rewarding if Oliver has been particularly good and on a couple of nights he put a small chocolate square on Oliver's pillow! We have a picture of him on our fridge door.

Pray. If you have followed my blog for a while you know that this year has been particularly tough for Mike's family. First a cousin of his passed away suddenly around March. Then another cousin was diagnosed with lung and liver cancer (thankfully she is in remission which is some miracle), then his mam was in and out of hospital all summer with some sort of an infection which did not seem to ever go away. More recently an uncle (the father of the cousin that passed away) had some major surgery and went into cardiac arrest. They had to shock him 6 times to bring him back. He has turned a corner and on his way to recovery. Finally, Mike's mam is back in hospital as of last friday. I wrote about her here and here and unfortunately she is going to loose her second leg. More clots have formed and there is nothing more that can be done. Surgery is scheduled for tomorrow. They will try and save the knee, however I can't imagine how she will manage. She never really walked again even with the one prosthesis, so with two it will be just plain impossible. As the news came through yesterday that this was the course of action, we rushed to the hospital, only to find a very happy and positive mother-in-law, looking forward to be done with the pain and joking how she will in fact be able to fly again and go on holidays (she couldn't fly anymore since her circulation in the remaining leg was still so compromised). If you ever think your situation is bad and don't think you can cope, I will happily pass on her phone number, she is out of this world. We know her GP totally screwed up when she went to him with pains in her leg last week and he dismissed her after feeling her calf and saying there was nothing to worry about. He didn't check for pulse, just sent her on her way. The day after she decided to come up to Dublin and get herself checked in. It was too late. There is apparently an 8 hours window where clots could have been resolved with heparin drips and she missed it. If it was me, I would be on to a lawyer and sue the GP. Nope, not MIL. She said she was certainly disappointed with his care and she will change doctor. No point in fussing over what has been done, the outcome won't change. I wish I had her attitude. Please spare some thoughts and prayers as she faces this new challenge.