The Happy-Sad Podcast
Today, I am writing from the hospital. Not because I am working in the NICU, but because my son, Lincoln, is admitted to the hospital with respiratory distress for the second time in three months. The first time he was admitted, I wrote a blog post on surviving a hospitalization with your child. And that post helped immensely as I was preparing to come to the hospital for this admission. As we were “packing” to leave for the hospital, I followed my own advice from what I learned the first hospital stay. I remembered my pillow, his blanket, his lovey, clothes, snacks, and entertainment. I even filled our bottles with ice water — and promptly left them on the kitchen counter in a rush to get out the door with my sick kid!
Of all the things to forget, a water bottle is the easiest to have the hospital provide for me!
Thank you for the giant water cup!
I also recently wrote a post about fear. Fear is an emotional response to a known threat. With COVID looming over everything, and Lincoln getting admitted to the hospital for the second time in three months, I was definitely feeling fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the worst-case scenario. Fear of loss. Fear of failure, or more accurately, fear that people would perceive me as a failure for having to take my sick child to the hospital. We had already tried oxygen and antibiotics at home, and he was getting worse. I knew when we went to the pediatrician’s office that there was a high likelihood that they would recommend hospitalization. And for a moment, while sitting in the clinic, having heard the news that we were indeed going to be admitted to the hospital, that fear started to overwhelm me.
And then I remembered: I get to choose how I interact with my fear. And I chose not to let it consume me. Here is what I did:
Take a deep breath. After a moment of tears and feeling overwhelmed, I took a deep breath. It gave me space to calm down and think. Then I knew what needed to get done to get us home from the clinic, packed, and to the hospital.
Acknowledge the fear. My fear came at me with a wave of endless questions: How am I going to get this done? How long will he be at the hospital? What if he gets worse? What if he has COVID-19? Who is going to watch my girls while I am at the hospital? How is Chris going to be able to keep working? How am I going to get back to work? Ok. Stop. Breathe. My fear was flooding my mind with endless questions. I needed to set many of those questions aside so I could focus on the tasks at hand - getting Lincoln from the clinic, home to gather what we needed, and to the hospital safely. The rest of the questions would have to wait.
Ask for help. This has always been the hardest step for me - asking for help. This time though, I didn’t hesitate. I texted my coworkers to say I would need help covering my shifts while I was at the hospital with Lincoln. I texted my husband and asked him to start preparing a bag. I drove through Chick-fil-A to pick up dinner for everyone at home so I didn’t have to worry about how I was going to feed them since it was dinnertime. And when mom’s from school offered to bring my family dinner a few times this week, I didn’t refuse.
But I didn’t write this post to talk about Lincoln, or his hospitalization, or fear exactly. I wrote this post to highlight the impact that managing my fear had on my daughters. Because I was able to control my fear and present them with a calm explanation of why Lincoln needed to go to the hospital, they were not overwhelmed. They remained calm as we packed his bag, helping me get essentials like Lincoln’s blanket ready to go. Because I was able to reassure them that we were going to the hospital to keep Lincoln safe, they felt safe about the plan. Because I wasn’t beating myself up about being a failure of a mom and a doctor, they saw me practicing being kind to myself and to my family. Sometimes I forget that kids are always watching. ALWAYS. They take their cues and get their energy from us. When I am frantic, they are frantic. When I am calm, they are calm. When I am short-tempered, so are they.
Once I had left for the hospital, the girls then took it upon themselves to help comfort each other (with the help of Daddy of course). They needed to be close to each other, so they had a sleepover on the floor. Rules go out the window when you have a kid hospitalized, so sleepovers with siblings are allowed on a school night! And Emmeline took it a step further. She took that calm, kind energy and wrote a Podcast. “The Happy-Sad Podcast”. It is about your outlook in life and how you can choose where you focus your energy. I could not love it more.
Sometimes, when your family is going through stress, we just need to be close to each other. Sibling sleepover on a school night!
Sitting in the hospital, writing this, I could not be more proud of my kids. Being brave, comforting each other, and keeping a positive attitude despite all that is going on. This experience has been a reminder to me - that I control my reaction to the world around me, and my kids model their behavior on my reactions.