Transatlantacism

What can I say besides we're a little bummed. I brought Sylvie to the Reuten clinic Monday morning. Sylvie's platelets were 6 which is critically low, she had zero white blood cells, and a 101.3 fever. Instant admission. Damn Sam. Suzanne called upstairs and to admitting as soon as Sylvie registered a fever. Any fever over 101 is a minimum 24-hour sentencing upstairs.

WE'RE SO CLOSE TO BEING DONE AND HOSPITAL FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!

This sucks. On the other hand, Sylvie was psyched to see "the gray man" and go really really fast in the wheel chair through the Mark Messier sky wing and up to good old Room 4 in Pediatric Oncology & Hematology. Once again, we can learn a lot from children. And so we settled into a few days at the Four Seasons Hackensack.

Michael slept over last night so that I could go to work today. Dr. Rosen came by to hang out with Michael; I think Sylvie officially thinks he's our good friend (which he is) instead of a doctor. She eyed his doctor badge suspiciously, Michael said.

I'm fried. Exhausted. Toast. Whatever you call it.

In case I give the impression that going back to work part-time and juggling Sylvie's appointments is manageable, let me say for the record that I can only compare it to training for a marathon when your broken ankle hasn't fully healed. It's like closing an infected wound. On that note, I have a stress fracture in my left femur so no running for me for 8 weeks. Just when I was getting into the groove and a new iPod. Happens to me every time. X-rays of my femurs would show years of callouses from healed stress fractures. Each one is caused by the fact that I get really into running whenever I'm going through some personal hell and overdue it [compounded with my spine being fused].

I am happy being back at work but it's very hard to balance Sylvie's appointments with conference calls and deadlines. It's not like I'm at the beach when I'm not in the office. Granted, I would LOVE to be at the beach. Instead I'm sitting in a chair alongside Sylvie's bed usually somewhere with no cell reception. I have two very time sensitive project at work; otherwise I might have postponed my returning. I nearly cried last night when my mom asked me how I was doing.

Today was a double whammy on the train. There's so much construction at the Ridgewood train station that the NJ Transit ticket-takers do not charge the $5 surcharge for paying cash for a ticket on the train because you are very likely to miss the train if you have to run to one end to purchase a ticket and back to the other side to board the train (because a very high and menacing fence blocks off 80% of the sidewalk). The train attendant, a woman who sometimes goes beserk on the loud speaker yelling to everyone to remove their personal belongings from the seats to allow others to sit down. Anyway, she went to charge me the $5 surcharge and I had to reason with her that, DUH, they have waived it during construction which trust me, she was well aware of. Finally she relented and I gave her my $6.50. I wanted to say to her, "No Carmel Macchiato with Whipped Cream for you today" but instead read an old New York Magazine and kept to myself. Somehow I missed Catherine who was also on the train.

You don't need to hear about work besides the mad dash of meetings and more meetings and my making a list of everything I want to review with Sylvie's doctors and APNs tomorrow. I called our social worker, Margaret, to see if she could attend the meeting as well. Then Michael called me to say Dr. Harris is on vacation this week which kind of sent me over the edge because I've been asking to have THIS meeting TOMORROW for TWO WEEKS and if he was going to be on vacation, I would have appreciated knowing it. I'm still a little surprised at how non-chalant everyone's been about my wanting to simply get in a room and get on the same page and talk about the next month, six months, year. For example, what are their post-cancer recommendations for Sylvie's well being? What constitutes an emergency and where do I go/call (The ER, The Clinic, Dr. Rosen?) Is Sylvie more susceptible to getting some ghastly virus? Do any of her chemo drugs increase the likelihood of other pediatric or adult cancers (I know the answer is YES already)? Are there any red flags in Sylvie's test results or response to treatments over the last 5 months that would increase the likelihood of her cancer returning? And little things like can we travel and WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THERE IS A TCF CAMP FOR THE KIDS IN AUGUST BECAUSE WE'RE ALL GOING STIR CRAZY AND IT WOULD BE GREAT FOR MY KID TO HANG OUT WITH KIDS FOR ONCE IN 6 MONTHS.

It's been a long year. I'm tired. I need to sleep for like a month.

Fast forward. I sped out of work to make an early train to Essex Street. I bolted through the PATH station, saw I had 1 minute to make the next Spring Valley train. As I speed walked alongside the soon-to-depart train, I asked the train conductor guy if the train stopped at Essex Street, just to be sure. A resounding, "YES!" I hopped on. Fast forward, I was talking to my college roommate Jodi on the cell phone as the SAME conductor guy came buy collecting tickets. I handed him my one-way to Essex Street, Hackensack and he looked at me, smirked and said, "This train isn't going to Essex Street. Next stop is Pearl River. New York."

I dropped a few f-bombs. I started crying. And then my 4 hours a week of yoga and zen self flew out the window as I cry-screamed at him, "YOU told ME the train stopped at Essex Street when we boarded the train TOGETHER. My daughter is in the hospital with fucking CANCER and now I won't see her before she goes to fucking sleep. How the fuck am I going to get from Pearl River to the hospital?!" He said he made an announcement which I didn't hear but foremost, we boarded the train together, I had asked him and he LIED. Fuckwad. Sorry guys, it takes all the power within me to not curse like a sailor and today, I am powerless.

I sobbed into Michael's voice mail. He called Andy who hopped in the car to meet me in Pearl River. Andy called me and said his wife (Catherine) and I share the record for most "wrong trains." I contended this was totally not my fault!

To make a long story longer (remember, they're called Audra Stories), I got to the hospital at 7:30 and Sylvie was fast asleep. Had I taken my normal train, I would have gotten there at around 7 pm. So my efforts at getting there early today-- by 6 pm-- failed. All I can hope for is that tomorrow will go better and that the train conductor guy felt like shit for the rest of the day. A very kind woman followed me off the train and offered to have her husband drive me to Hackensack. The dude got such dirty looks from the other passengers that he didn't even re-enter our car after collecting all the train tickets. F&*^^# JERK. I have until Yom Kippur to hold a grudge against him although my yogi wisdom is telling me to let it go right this very second. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

OK Michael's mom is staying over the hospital tonight and I'm looking forward to hanging out with Michael, reading Vermont Monthly magazine and dreaming about our house. Hence the photograph of Lucky wading in the Lamoille River off of the Quiet Path in Stowe.

Afterall, tomorrow is another day.