I went to bed Tuesday feeling not great, but Wednesday morning I was sick.  Of course my sick was nothing compared to Moira’s sick – she’d been sick all over her bed.  So, while Jim got her in the shower, I did lots of laundry, empty her sick bowl several times and finally got a nap.  This was not the most difficult day of my week.

On Sunday, someone who told me he would do something for me backed out, no reason, no apology, just no.  This was after a commitment and for something I was relying on and one week before the deadline.  This was not the most difficult day of my week.

Saturday, while paying for his Christmas gift to Moira at Barnes & Noble  Liam tells me, “Mommy, my heart is beating really fast.”  It shouldn’t have been. This was technically last week, so it was the most difficult day of my week.

No the most difficult day of my week was Monday when I called to report Liam’s “incident” to his cardiologist and got the call back.  Liam’s having tachycardia to go with his bradycardia.  Tachy – really fast, brady – really slow. . . and his doctor was waiting for this to happen.  It’s the fourth horseman of the dawn of the pacemaker and what they gave him 16 Holter monitors in two years to find.  Liam found it all by himself in line at Barnes & Noble, and again in Music Class on Wed.

So, now we have to call the cardiologist again in ten days, tell him how often this has happened, wait for my new insurance card to show up and see the doctor in January.  Maybe Liam will get a little hand held event monitor to catch his tachycardia episodes, maybe he’ll gets some nasty toxic heart medicine that we’ve been trying to avoid but no longer can, or maybe we’ll pull him out of school and send him to the hospital to have his sixth open-heart surgery.  Oh, yeah . . . unlike 90% of the pacemaker population Liam’ has to get his through the chest.  So, no overnight recovery for my third grader. . . nope it’s a big one. Doctor says, “It’s pretty much certain” that Liam’s chest will be cracked.  Only problem there – besides the terrible pain for my eight-year-old – is all that scar tissues from the five other times this has happened to him and the risk of infection which after it almost killed him five years ago we take very, very seriously.  Plus I’m afraid Liam is going to hate me for putting him through this.

I’ve not been sleeping well.  I’m cancelling my book release party today until further notice, since Liam may be in the hospital or recovering, or what I don’t know.  Until I know it seems foolish to make plans.  Ironically, or not, the book talks about how we can’t really make plans because Liam’s medical condition precludes all planning.  I guess I forgot that lesson over the last three years since he had his last heart surgery.  So on this prelude to Christmas, my mind is revisiting six open hearts, six cath interventions, one wire-ectomy (no longer valid) new wires coming, and partridge in a pair tree. Sorry, I’m usually supper chipper and positive, and I will be again, that’s my nature, but I’ve been holding this in all week and it’s gotta come out.