The Cheeseblog

Last Thursday Trombone and I wandered the ‘hood, laughing at flat Santas and feeling generally gleeful and Friday-like, as this was Saint Aardvark’s last day of work before vacation till January 2nd! At 9:54 that night, Pomodoro’s baby girl was finally born, rabid refreshing of geckobloggle ceased and I went to bed.

On Friday I woke up feeling kind of skeevy. Hmmm, I thought, guess I am not so good at wine after all however I had big plans for the day so set about them.

My big plans were: to take a co-op car and go to Superstore. What did I need at Superstore on the 22nd of December (and, as Saint Aardvark rightly asked, “are you out of your f8ing mind?”) ? Pecans. I planned to make pecan apple stuffing for Christmas turkey and I wanted bulk pecans and I wanted to go to Superstore to get them. Obviously, the point of the exercise was not Superstore, per se, but a baby-free adventure.

So dosed with ibuprofen and coffee and breakfast, I headed off to the bus to get to the co-op car.

Aside
1. There are a kwazillion co-op cars in Vancouver. In the West End, where we lived when we signed up with the co-op, we couldn’t drop the phat beat without hitting a co-op car. Sadly, as cars are positioned based on population of members, there are Two (2) co-op cars in New Westminster. Neither is located terribly conveniently to us. Unless a lot more people in New Westminster join the co-op soon, (thus perhaps increasing the number of cars out here) we may have to stop/stop/with/the co-op.
2. The car was there! This is not always the case with the New Westminster cars. Even though there are only 2 and they are at opposite ends of the city, it has been known to happen that someone reserves one and takes the other.
3. The car was intact! Once, I got to a New Westminster car and the driver’s side mirror was hanging by a thread. There was a note in the car from the previous co-op member acknowledging this, but no further action had been taken. (for those of you playing at home, the correct action would have been to call the office and let them know so they could have it fixed) We did that and then, at their request, duct taped it as an interim measure.
4. The car gets excellent reception for 100.3 The Q: The Island’s Best Rock, which is my favourite radio station of all time, ever since, years ago and at my request, they played “Blinded By the Light” (Manfred Mann version) in its entirety. When I turned on The Q, it was playing “Land of Confusion” by Genesis. Over the course of my travels, it would play “Jump,” (Van Halen) “12 Days of Christmas,” (Bob & Doug MacKenzie) a lot of other songs that make me go, Oh! I love this song! and pound the steering wheel and absolutely no Paul McCartney. Sadly I cannot say the same for Superstore.

I always knew parenthood was an individual experience. No one else’s would be like mine and I shouldn’t expect mine to be like anyone else’s. But based on convention, I guess, and myth? I sort of expected that when I went out without the baby I would be walking around thinking about him all the time or wondering how he was doing or wishing he was with me. I don’t very often go out without him so when I do, I expect to feel something – a tug, or a yank, or an evisceration. Invariably, though, I get out of the house and it’s like the baby never happened. I have physical proof that the baby happened – there is no other reason why I have 17-odd pacifiers clogging valuable pocket-space, plus, on the bus, I can go to the back and sit in the corner like a surly teenager again – but emotionally I just leave him at home.

Perhaps this is because I know he is well cared-for. On Friday he was left with his dad to bond and play tiddly winks and whatever it is they do when I’m not there. (see? I don’t care! As long as I’m off doing something else, they can do what they want.)

Anyway, I had these blissful moments, driving down Lougheed Highway, listening to FM stereo, to think, I am still me. I can still do things like drive fast down the highway, go to the store, sing all the words to this dumb song that I hate. I am alone alone alone and it is wonderful.

It’s a good thing I enjoyed that little outing so much. I got home about noon, ate some peanut butter toast & went out to drop off the car, take the bus to the mall to pick up some last minute junk, then back home again. We walked over to the little mall to get some beer and sundries and then home again. Suddenly, I was so

so
tired.

And the great, leaden foot of the Flu Elephant was slowly lowered upon my head and all I could do was shake my fist at the sky (weakly,) whispering, why, why, why.

Then I sat, wrapped up in a blanket and tylenoled to the hilt, watching Saint Aardvark and Trombone play peek-a-boo, wishing I could muster the energy to move my head and participate. Where’s MOMMY? asked Saint Aardvark. Trombone looked worriedly at me. I lifted my hand like the old pope.

We all cheek-kissed goodnight because the only thing worse than mama with flu for Christmas is mama, baby and papa with flu for Christmas. I slept and slept and woke and woke and had my default “I’m sick and sleeping poorly” song in my head: Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie.” It was in my head almost the whole time I was in labour (except at the end when SA was kind enough to sing Armageddon softly in my ear) and the last time I had a fever with my cold. It just goes round and round and round. Torture.

Saturday. I dipped some dry toast in peppermint tea & sucked on it. I felt incredibly nauseous: hungry and queasy at the same time. And no, I’m not pregnant again.

Couldn’t move
up
the stairs too m
any stairs
oh god why
is this baby so
big? can’t
lift him!

Once again, Trombone and Saint Aardvark hung out, played bridge, talked world politics, whatever. I was in bed. All day. Except when I got out to feed the baby. Sadly we had used our last frozen packet of breast milk the day before when I was off on my big adventure to Superstore. And no I couldn’t just stay in bed to feed the baby because our room isn’t dark enough and if he isn’t in a dark room he doesn’t eat. That’s why his bedroom has blankets on the windows. Glad we didn’t expend too much energy decorating that room – we may never see it in daylight again.

Saturday evening I started to perk up a little. I ate some chicken soup but it tasted like ass. This was my first clue that it might not be flu after all. My next clue was scatalogic in nature.

Sunday. Achy weakness fever: gone. Contents of intestines large and small: gone. Respiratory distress: non-existent. Symptoms exhibited by family members: none.

So, not flu, but either food poisoning or gastroentiritis! Fabulous because a recovery would be imminent and I was not contagious. Hell, I might even feel like eating again by the following day, it being Christmas and my mother making tiramisu for pete’s sake I needed to eat that tiramisu. Wracked brains for what might have poisoned me. Maybe the luncheon on Wednesday? Maybe a fruit roll-up on Friday?

More dry
toast to eat mmm
and more
tea
water
water
tea

Late in the afternoon Trombone begain boycotting my left breast.

By his last feed of the day, before bed, he was screaming at the right breast because it was empty and screaming at the left breast because it was Communist? I don’t know. All I know is the screaming was loud and hungry and nerve-shattering and I wanted to be back on that highway in the co-op car listening to anything, even Shakira, rather than trying to wrestle this giant screaming baby when I had no strength, having not eaten anything for 2 days.

Well of COURSE my milk supply was dwindling. Let’s see, what did I eat for 3 days? There were the 2 pieces of dry toast on Friday night at about 11. Then there was an orange. Then there was some more dry toast mid-day Saturday. Oh, and the chicken soup. Plus, on Sunday? Some dry toast. Then, of course, the full colon-cleanse (and it was free! no kits necessary!) for which I was attempting to compensate with as much water and herbal tea as I could drink but, apparently, to no avail. My boobs were flaccid, pathetic and empty.

On Christmas Eve.
At 7:30 pm.
Safeway is not.
Open.
But the rain
feels nice on your
hot, tearstained
face.

Luckily we had rented a car for 3 days over the holidays – Christmas Eve through the 27th – so Saint Aardvark got in it and went in search of emergency formula. Trombone cried and cried and cried, eventually slept a bit, then woke up more relaxed and managed to elicit a let-down of some more milk from Trusted Righty, enough to get him to sleep until 2 or so.

And thusly, buffeted by infant formulae Good Start and Ensure, we did wrap our final presents, prepare apple pecan stuffing, listen to the CBC choral Christmas concert and feel ever so slightly festive.

Christmas was gorgeous. There was our little family, my parents, my cousin who recently moved here and her partner whom she recently married. Trombone loved it all, especially all the licking. Imagine, he seemed to be saying, a day when they let you sit around naked and lick things!

He ate sweet potatoes, chewed on a turkey leg and brushed his own teeth with his new toothbrush.

Meanwhile, in my mother’s kitchen, a spoon sat in a bowl, some traces of apple pecan stuffing clingly coyly to it. Saint Aardvark, unable to resist his wife’s apple pecan stuffing and being his son’s father, gave it a hearty swipe with his tongue and then, instantly realizing his error, ran to the bathroom to wash his mouth out with soap. Because, of course, the spoon had been used to stuff the stuffing into the turkey, the raw turkey, the turkey teeming with salmonella. (But it was free-range salmonella, at least.)

12 hours later.
mama sleeping peacefully
at last
babe restless
due to incomplete
digestion of
sweet
potato
papa feels
his
tummy rumble
ominous.

Boxing Day. Saint Aardvark’s turn to lie in bed all day, aching and sweating and feeling queasy. My turn to amuse the baby with my newly returned energy and hunger. This is a NANAIMO BAR, Trombone. Can you say NANAIMO BAR? Oh! WHERE did it GO? Look, here’s another one. Oh! Where did IT go?

My attempts to pump my left breast in order to keep it “in the game,” as it were, had been fairly unsuccessful. Without demand, its supply was vanishing. Without supply, Trombone was uninterested in it. It’s kind of the opposite of successful lactation, really. So once again, at 4 pm, I offered the left, which was met with screams, then the right, which was as empty as the phrase “moving forward” and also met with screams, then his first bottle of formula, which was met with glugging and then sleep.

Later I managed to pump 3 oz from the left and today it seems to be back on track. Ish. Sorta.

Later still, Trombone had his first, certifiable freak-out (almost vacuum-cleaner worthy) in a very long time. We blame the terrorists. We think they may have won, at least at our house.

Later later still, I had my first beer of the Christmas season and went to bed.

And now, the bright side of spending a week with various ailments of the gastrointestinal variety:

– the chocolate lasts longer
– the beer lasts longer
– hey, we got jalapeno microwave popcorn for Christmas. THAT’s going to be around a while.
– our illnesses are fleeting
– our family is healthy
– we are blessed
– and for this, we are grateful.

He wore brown corduroy pants tucked into tall, tan snow boots with fur trim. His jacket was brown too and he wore an argyle wool scarf knotted around his neck. He brushed past me to leave the waiting room for the parking lot, then bustled back in, a large textbook under his arm. Cold air from outside gusted around those of us waiting. The office was too hot.

I had arrived on time for my 12:30 appointment with the new doctor. Dismayed to find three people already in the waiting room, I asked the woman next to me how long she had been waiting.

She shrugged. “Half hour?” she said, her English accented. “We always have to wait here,” she added, gesturing to the other people in the room, “Dr. Awesome*, he takes his time.”

Great, I thought, balancing Trombone on my lap as I shrugged off my coat and held the clipboard and pen in my teeth. Damn health care. Damn bottom-of-the-barrel doctors.The woman next to me held her hands out. “I can hold him,” she said.

I obliged and she and her husband, who sat across the room with his friend entertained Trombone with smiles, endearments whispered in their native language and those clicks of the tongue that men like to use to communicate with babies.

After visiting Dr. Dude for the first and only time, I was reluctant to go back. I called a few doctors recommended to me by friends but none of them was willing to accept new patients. I checked our city’s list of physicians every few days and the same short list greeted me every time.

I had disqualified the four physicians on the list based on 1. location 2. specialty 3. location and 4. age. I guess that makes me ageist? But this doctor, he graduated from medical school in 1960! (the list of physicians tells you this) That made him at least 70 years old and I couldn’t see the point in going to a doctor who was probably at retirement’s door, knocking feebly with a quivering fist.

One day, as I checked the list, I thought: well, even if he DOES retire next week, at least he’s only 2 blocks away from our house. And he couldn’t be any WORSE than Dr. Dude. And even if he was just as bad as Dr. Dude, I wouldn’t have to take transit to get there. And he was ALWAYS listed as accepting new patients. So I called and made an appointment for Trombone’s 4 month checkup.

“Hellooooooo adorable baby!” One of the nurses came down the very narrow hallway into the waiting room. She squatted in front of us, Trombone by now back on my lap as the woman who had been holding him had gone in for her appointment. Trombone grinned.

“I looooooove baby toes,” she said, grabbing his foot and pretending to put it in her mouth. She had amazing false eyelashes and frosted long, curly hair. Trombone giggled.

“You’re here for your first appointment!” she said to him, then to me, with an apologetic tone,”one thing about Dr. Awesome? He takes his time.”

“Mmm,” I answered with as much restraint as I could muster having already spent 45 minutes in the waiting room with a baby whose attention span was being seriously compromised.

“He’s old-fashioned,” she explained, still wiggling Trombone’s foot, “he’s made house calls on Christmas day.”

“Wow,” I said.

“He does a real thorough appointment,” she said, “he likes to talk to you and find out what’s going on.”

My hard, tense heart began to warm to the good doctor.

“In fact,” she said, “he was MY doctor when I was pregnant with my son, who’s now 25. He’s got his own daughter now, my son, but I don’t see her very much. Had a disagreement with his wife. But I had some tests done when I was pregnant and I came in to get the results. And I waited out here and then I waited in the exam room but no one came in. Then the nurse came in and handed me the telephone. And it was Dr. Awesome, calling from his vacation in Hawaii! He didn’t want me to get the test results from his stand-in doctor!”

I felt a tear welling.

“That’s great,” I said.

“Yep,” she said, “but not as great as your adorable, smoochable, cutesy-footsy little boy!” Trombone grinned.

Two more patients came in from the cold, nodded at the receptionist and sat down. (it turned out they were both named George, information which delighted me.)

The man in the brown pants, jacket and boots was the doctor, I realized. The woman who had held Trombone came out of the exam room with her husband. They pinched Trombone’s cheeks and left.

The doctor came out of his office and took two files from the top shelf. “Come in,” he said, without looking up. The receptionist nodded at me.

His office was freezing. All the heat in the office was being used in the waiting area, I realized, and that was probably why he was dressed for the Arctic. He sat on a stool facing a wall of bookshelves that reached to the ceiling. I sat on the orange chair against the other wall. There was barely room for all three of us; the room was a closet lined with filing cabinets and shelving units.

The doctor had almost a full head of greying red hair and a beard. He wore glasses low on his nose. He didn’t especially look like he was in his ’70s.

“So,” he said. He had a faint British accent. “Little Trombone.”

He spun to face us and smiled the kindest smile I have ever seen. Trombone by now had given up grinning. He was tired, hungry and tired and also fed up and also? tired.

“Grumble,” said Trombone.

“What a strapping lad,” said the doctor. He clapped his hands in front of Trombone’s face. Trombone started. “Good,” said the doctor and wrote it down.

It was just a normal doctor’s visit. But that was it exactly: it was just a normal doctor’s visit. I felt comfortable. I felt heard. I felt like I haven’t felt at a doctor’s office in a long time.

He asked me if I had any problems. I mentioned my bunion which is not a bunion. He pulled off my boot and sock and looked at my foot.

“No, not a bunion,” he said, “let’s see…” He reached up to his bookshelf, plucked a book out of thin air and opened directly to the page on feet. “Here,” he pointed, “this is the tendon that’s giving you trouble.”

I mean, people. This is seriously the doctor I have been looking for my whole life.

(He said if my foot doesn’t feel better in a month to come back and he’ll order an x-ray.)

Then he asked how I had come to his office. I told him he was very close to our home.

He smiled. “I opened this practice in 1974,” he said. “Before that I worked in Winnipeg, before that as a surgeon in India, before that I lived in Britain. I’ve always wanted to work in a setting like this one. I’ve seen 3 generations of families in this office.”

“1974 is the year I was born,” was all I could think of to say.

“Indeed,” he answered.

His hand was cool and soft when he shook mine and said he was pleased to have met us.

We left half an hour after we’d entered his office and 90 minutes after our scheduled appointment but I was relaxed. Even Trombone had calmed down. Because Dr. Awesome takes his time.

* Not his real name.