Low white blood count

My wife couldn't get her chemo today due to a low white count. Her numbers were only 800, apparently doctors get concerned when the number is below 1,000. On the plus side she wasn't admitted to the hospital. For now, it seems that the medical staff is taking a wait and see attitude. On the home front I'll have to see what we can do.

For now I've changed our weekly food (I cook for the week on the weekend) to something heavy in spinach, kale, navy beans and other ingredients that are good for producing white blood cells. I've added more of her chores to mine (never enough) but the real thing she needs is sleep. Problem is our children are still young(ish) and like for her to read bedtime stories. I've suggested she give that up and go to bed earlier but she refuses, saying it would upset the kids (truth is, I think she likes the down time with them). We're avoiding visiting my mother, who is in a nursing home. I'm included to make sure I don't bring anything home, though as my wife works with the public I'm not sure if that really makes a difference. Making physical changes is easy, mental ones are harder.

I did make one mistake though, concerning her abilities to do things on her own versus me working at home more to help her out. I recently applied for a managerial position at my company's headquarters that went to somebody else. My director and I spoke about why I didn't get a promotion recently (I was one of the finalists, guy who got it is equally qualified, if not better as he worked in a law firm much more recently than I) and one reason was the bad timing here as I really didn't want to commute to NYC more than 3 days a week. They knew about my wife's condition and know I'm a bit distracted. Truth is, for the money they were offering, a 4-5 day a week commute wouldn't have been financially rewarding and I would have only taken the position for a resume filler (that and I really was interested in the job), but I let them think my wife's condition would prevent me from going in more than three days a week. A no harm, no foul type of thing as I would be looked upon as someone interested in moving up but for temporary personal issues in my family.

When I mentioned that to my wife, she asked me if I blamed her for not getting the promotion, noting that she could do everything with the kids on her own if need be. Whoops. I apologized as soon as I realized how my comments were seen by her. While it is true I am happy taking on more responsibilities and giving her more time to rest, exercise etc, that telecommuting gives me (her office is 10 min from the house, mine is an hour), I rather enjoy the work/life balance telecommuting gives me and, at our older ages, commuting to Manhattan more than a few days a week no longer appeals to me. At least I am getting better at realizing when I've put my foot in my mouth and said something hurtful. Still, I have to admit, if we lived closer to Manhattan (or still in the city) and there weren't family issues right now, I would have been more disappointed I didn't get the promotion but I've come to believe that things happen or don't happen for a reason. It is better for my entire family that my schedule remains flexible for now and my wife is better able to heal.

But, to put everything in perspective, these are a minor setbacks, for now. A woman I went to high school with has been battling  angiosarcoma for several years. Most recently she was clean and ready to live again. Earlier this week she went for routine scans. Today she got the results; it spread to her lungs and she needs to start chemotherapy again -- today. I don't know what her prognosis but the general long term prognosis for angiosarcoma is not too good. Hopefully we never find out how that is.

Worries

My wife's attitude regarding her treatment for her Stage I breast cancer has deteriorated lately and I'm getting worried. Up until now, she has had a fairly positive attitude and, for the most part she still does. However, I've noticed a shift in her mood the last few days. She has become really worried as her chemotherapy is getting close to the end, expressing concern that her only barrier between her and a return of the cancer cells will be gone. Even though the surgeon got the entire tumor and they are medically shutting down her ovaries since her breast cancer was estrogen fueled, she is convinced the cancer will come back and she will die young. While she has had that fear since her diagnosis back in May, this has gotten worse the last few days.

Her white blood cells were very low when she went for her chemo last week, so low that she needed a shot (not sure what) to get her count up so she could get her treatment. She is trying to do everything right, exercising, eating correctly, drinking her water, etc. but still her count is down. That is a concern as she is more susceptible to catching a cold, not hard to do when you have a 12 year old and a 7 year old in the house. But that is physical and there is not much you can do about that aside from take precautions. Mental health is another matter and for the most part, hers has been pretty upbeat. She has been pretty open as her moods and opinions on things, like me, have swung wildly the last three months and I have been able to take the body blows knowing that this is just part of the process (only put me on anti-depressants and sent me to a shrink). She has told me she is very happy that my anger issues have faded away and our marriage seems to be doing better than it has in years. However, it is what she is talking about lately that bothers me.

This weekend she was looking up information on different cancers. At first, probably due to her low white cell count, she focused on Myelodysplastic Syndrome, the same blood disorder GMA's Robin Roberts contracted after her chemotherapy for breast cancer. Understandable. And then yesterday, she spent some time on rectal cancer lately, presumably because the husband of one of her friends was just diagnosed with it (outlook isn't great). However, some articles she found have suggested that survivors of breast cancer have a slightly higher risk of getting colorectal cancer, among other things. At that point that was all she could think about.

Ok, I know my wife tends to obsess about things so I originally thought that this is what that latest round of research was -- looking into treatments for her friend and she just happened to stumble upon this. But then she mentioned she wants to lower her 401k contributions so we could buy a new car and travel a bit. Sounds nice but I reminded her that my 401k alone won't be enough for both of us to retire on. She replied that she didn't think I would have to worry about that. When I asked her if she thought she was going to die young, her answer was yes. That's the first time, at least since she started her treatment, she has said that.

Maybe she is just tired. Between the hot flashes and medication that causes her to go to the bathroom constantly, she is barely getting two hours of sleep at a time. And even if she does get back to sleep, she is not finding it as restful. Or it could just be another reaction of her hormones bouncing all over the place. I've checked out several breast cancer boards and have seen similar issues so I am not too worried. And I hope that is all that this is. Because if it is not, then she is the one who needs to see the shrink, not me.

And I don't mean that in a negative or nasty way, it's just that I don't know what else to do. I've picked up more chores, do most of the cooking, work at home more often to help with the kids and give her time to go to the gym and generally try my best be positive. I can cook the right foods and try to say the right things but, at this point, like her physical condition, her mental condition may need professional assistance.

Time over a promotion

I didn't get the new job I applied for last month in NYC and I have to say I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand I wouldn't have minded a challenge in an exciting work environment again, the other hand looks at our crazy home life the last few months and realizes that it is best if my time reminds flexible for the next six months or so as my wife continues to heal from her lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiation from her breast cancer surgery in June.  While it is nice I don't have to eliminate our nice leisurely before school mornings I am a bit concerned what this does to my long term career plans as more and more of my position's duties, which are highly skilled, are getting shipped overseas.

I hadn't planned on interviewing for a new position last month, although  my wife and I had been talking about both of us looking for new opportunities in the spring, once she was healed. But sometimes opportunities just happen. The position is a managerial one in a fairly new division of my company. I have been working with them as borrowed talent from before the days that division officially started up and am familiar with the work and the players involved. The previous manager retired and, when her job was posted, I debated about applying for it, leaning against it as I wasn't sure this was the right time for our family. I worried about time, time away from caring for the children and what that added time restraint would do to both my wife's and mine health (less gym time for both plus her ingoing cancer treatments). And I didn't want to commute to Manhattan five days a week again, which is what was originally required.

But then they reached out to me, which was flattering, so I decided to apply. And I am glad I did. It has been a long time since I was excited to go to work and, after interviewing with the higher ups, I saw this may be an opportunity to get excited again.  Career wise, assuming I stay in the company and I and the initiative succeeded, it would be an excellent long term move. Working at the company's headquarters in NYC, not a pleasant semi-back office in the suburbs, would have made me more visible. However, there were personal time issues I had concerns with. 

Some of my fears about time constraints probably wouldn't mattered as much as they could have. On the day of the interview I left the office at 6:15P and was walking in my door by 7:45P. This may sound lousy to most of the country, but is actually almost decent for those commuting from Manhattan. With evening activities keeping my wife and children out of the house until the 7 o'clock hour anyway many evenings, coming home close to 8PM is not as bad as it was when the children were younger and required more hands on dealings (and I will still be able to pick up the slack two evenings a week). Add in 20-30 minutes on the treadmill in the morning and evening and I could have made it work.

But, I still worried what this would mean for my family. My wife has finally admitted how much all the flexibility my current job allows me in taking care of the children, food shopping, taking care of the pets, doing laundry and, just in general, taking care of her in little ways, has helped her get through this. She has time to rest, though never enough, and time to go to the gym. Because I have time to cook, she always has a healthy meal waiting for her to be warmed up when she gets home from her evening gym classes (which she has time to take as I can drive the kids around in the evenings. Though my wife was able to leave work on time, get the kids from their aftercare programs at their schools and still make a family spin class at 5:30P at the Y, while I was in the NYC office until 6:15P, that was at the start of her paclitaxel, treatment and the wear on her body is cumulative. She might have had problems with that by mid-November when I would started in the new position. Still, these short term positives could be meaningless if my job is eliminated in a few years and my resume doesn't have a managerial position in it.

As to the person who got the position, I feel they made a good choice. The person is a friend of mine who had been working on this new initiative for about as long as I. His skills set was very similar and, when he told me he had applied, I thought that this was the one person who could beat me out. Still, the job may have almost been mine anyway. They low balled him on salary, which my company does, sticking to the typical raise they offer to promoted employees, before they upped their offer (they wanted to give a 10% raise calculated from his base pay, he successfully got them to include the OT with the base pay and up it from there -- which still would not be enough in my view).

However, there are some things money and a more exciting work life can't buy -- time to care for my family and time to take care of me. If I'd have been promoted I would have had to head to NJ Transit before the school bus came (unlike now where, even on non-telecommute days, I am home until the bus comes). For our youngest child, this would have meant going to a neighbor's before school or being enrolled in a before school child care program, for our older child, this would have meant being a latch key kid (he vetoed going to a neighbor's like a younger child). Whereas I can currently help my wife get the children fed and out the door, much more of this would have fallen back on her. As to me, I would have had give up a huge portion of my exercise time. I recently took off a large amount of weight through diet and exercise and wondered how having less time to exercise and cook properly would affect that. Now I still get to hit the gym at 6AM and be home in time to see the children off to school and let the healthy foods cook in the slow cooker while I work in the other room.  Things a job in Manhattan would have prevented.

So while I may not have won this day, the interviews made me realize that while I was on the fence about taking the position, I am ready move on to something more challenging closer to home, where I can have the best of both a challenging position and a home life. While the timing is not right now, I want something that will knock me out of my comfort zone for some time as I've discovered that I usually have the ability to get done what needs to get done. It is almost time to move onto the next stage.

Healing

I know that at least a few people are following this blog and as the last few posts have been about me and my issues, with a side trip to a recent news event, I thought I'd do a quick update on my wife. [Note: April 2013: If you have been reading this blog, you will notice many entries since July, where I wrote of how the chemotherapy was affecting my wife's moods for the worse. When I originally posted this in October, things were still rocky from her cancer treatments.Things are better now so I decided to delete, from public view, all that I wrote. Those posts were a big help to me and helped me reflect on what I needed to do to make me a better person. The chemo was rough but it did help us clear the air and start rebuilding, almost like a forest fire clears out the dead wood so a new forest can emerge. I still have a ways to go, but I am on my way. - DD]

If it was the breast cancer, then it probably helps that she is done with the worst of the chemo. The bi-monthly doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide  portion of her treatment, which is so toxic that there is a lifetime dosage limit is done. And while the weekly paclitaxel treatment is no walk in the park, it is much easier on her, though it does leave her more tired. It has also put her into menopause, which is a whole other story. But, while she didn't want me driving her to chemotherapy at the start because she wanted to be alone, she recently suggested that maybe I could (or should) start coming with her again (partially because she is more tired and finds it harder to drive home). The paclitaxel is leaving her much more exhausted, possibly because it is weekly (or they are giving her too much benadryl) and the cumulative affects are adding up. As it will continue through mid-December (little break around Thanksgiving), she is starting to realize her energy levels can't keep up (I do wonder how much this aging her -- good things she works out and eats healthy, I'd hate to see what this would do to someone who isn't staying as fit as possible).

For now I am just happy that we are in a healing period. Our daughter's broken arm continues to mend, she is even able to restart dance now that she is in a permanent cast, though no hand stands yet. The drugs in my wife's body continues to poison whatever microscopic cancer cells may still be hanging out. The celexa my doctor prescribed continues to heal my bio-chemical imbalance in my mind.

I had been saying that 2012 sucks due to all the bad things that happened this year -- our pet turtle dying, a leak in the slab under our wood floors, our daughter breaking her arm and, of course, my wife's diagnosis and lumpectomy for breast cancer. My wife disagrees, feeling 2011 was the bad year as that is when she started getting sick and that 2012 is the good year as this was the year she became a survivor. Good attitude and if we somehow manage to get through this with a marriage stronger than ever, I will agree. For now, while the verdict looks promising, the judge is still out.

Fat bully police

By now, most of us have seen or heard of Kenneth Krause, the "man" who wrote a letter to an obese news anchor to tell her she is obese, and her response. Many people have many opinions on this but to me it comes down to this: Mr. Krause is an insecure loser who needs to bring down others to feed his own ego. Why would he write such as condescending letter, practically imply that   being fat equals not knowing you are possibly living an unhealthy lifestyle and he, as a buff bike rider, knows better and is here to help?

Trust me, Ms. Livingston knew she was obese just as I know I am currently overweight. And here is a dirty little secret -- fat people usually are very well informed about what foods are good for you and what are bad. We know how to count calories, and tricks to eat more food for our calorie buck such as chicken and fish over red meat and filling up on salads and vegetables. We know what foods are healthy and what aren't. And yet, we're over weight. That is our problem, not a complete stranger's problem.

We've all run into people like Krause whether it is the "do-gooder" offering unsolicited parenting advice, a person offering unsolicited advice to a stranger on how he or she can "fix" their appearance or speech pattern, telling a very thin woman she needs to gain weight or in this case, telling a fat person they are fat -- all as if the target is an idiot who does not already know the obvious. It is my experience that those type of people aren't being helpful, they are acting in such a way to make the recipient feel bad while giving themselves an ego boost, even if they don't see it in themselves. 

I still remember the time my wife and I took our son to a street fair 11 years ago, when he was 1 (it was a few weeks after 9/11) and, we were still learning the ins and outs of being parents (which we still haven't mastered but are much better at) and were still very nervous of whether we were making mistakes. Unknowingly to my wife and I, he had grabbed a clam shell from somewhere and was chewing on it. As he was much lower than our sight-line in his stroller, we didn't notice, but he couldn't have been doing this long as we usually looked down to see if her was OK every few minutes.  Anyway, a woman came up us to point this out. Now if she had been sincere she might have said something like, "Your son is chewing on a clam shell" to alert us, for which we would have been grateful. Instead, she asked me if a baby chewing on a shell was OK. When I mumbled a yes, trying to save face as my wife went for the shell, she replied "Well I'm a dental assistant and I know it is not." Really?! So why did you ask me the question in the first place? To make me feel bad as a failing parent and ruin our afternoon as she succeeded in doing? It was only later, when I rethought about the afternoon and noticed she had a smug look on her face (probably the same reason I don't like Romney, but that is another issue), that I realized she was the one with the problem.

Those who are confident in themselves would never make such a comment to a complete stranger but, as Mr. Krause is showing, and that dental assistant showed us over a decade ago, sometimes those with insecurities of their own look to beat on somebody weaker to make themselves feel better (which is probably something most people have done at some point in their lives). Maybe that type of intimidation doesn't fall directly under the definition of bullying but you can not convince me that deep down his behavior was not meant to hurt his target, just as the dental assistant did not want to hurt me. Maybe Mr. Krause, a "working-stiff" security guard, was being honest when he said he never meant to bully "a big media personality" like Ms. Livingston. And maybe the Pope isn't Catholic. Sorry Mr. Krause, but as anyone who has been bullied in the past could tell you, you know bullying when you see it and I sure saw it in your obnoxious letter. As one of my former professors constantly reminded us, "[i]f it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it must be a duck," even if it says it is not and your assertions that you want to help are as believable as Mitt Romney saying he was wrong when he made his 47% comment (I am of the opinion a politician really speaks the truth when he or she thinks that the cameras are not on, I'm sure President Obama has said some equally poor things when the cameras were off).

I have been on and off fat or obese most of my life. Even in my worst, denial days I knew I was eating unhealthy. It takes a lot of work to eat healthy and find the time to exercise, something very hard when you have small children. I'm not making excuses, just stating a fact. After a 12 hour day of commuting/working and helping your children with school work, it is much easier to just plop in front of the TV at night, or hit the snooze alarm in the morning, then to hit the treadmill for 30 minutes. It is so much easier to nuke some convenience food than to cook from scratch, even if all that cooking takes place over the weekend to be rewarmed during the work week as we do now. Again, no excuses. I chose a career with little physical movement and long hours that prevented me from finding time to exercise. We also chose to have children, taking more time away from ourselves. And, as many parents know, once you have children in the house, especially small children, that left over chicken nugget at 9PM, after a full day of work and child care, can be awfully tempting when you are exhausted and hungry. Again not an excuse, but also not the concern of a complete stranger.

Two years ago my weight was starting to get out of control. I'm talking NJ Governor Chris Christie out of control, almost to the point of no return without a surgical procedure, when I finally said enough is enough. Since then both my wife and I have taken off about 70 pounds each, changing our diet to mostly vegetarian and increasing our exercise time to (as of now) about 10 hours a week. It has taken a long time, and a lot of work but we feel better, which is what we want. We also look better, but it was what was inside that we wanted to improve. Our philosophy on food and exercise has changed for better, probably somewhat similar to Mr. Krause. We even look at fat people eating unhealthy with a bit of disgust, not because of their looks but because we see ourselves from not that long ago and know how we were poisoning ourselves.  Still, while I am happy to tell people I don't know, such as fellow obese gym members who have seen my weight loss, who ask me how I lost the weight, I would never walk up to somebody I did not know and offer unsolicited advice. The fat people know they are fat. They will deal with it, or not deal with it, as they please.

Staying fit is almost a second job, especially when you age and find yourself sitting behind a desk, a steering wheel or a bleacher at a child's sporting event most of the day. You start to find you don't have the time or energy to exercise like you did and it is easy to pack on the pounds before you realize you need to lower your calorie intake due to less movement (when my mother was initially confined to a wheelchair she quickly discovered how many calories you burn each day by simply walking). The only times in the last 20 years when we were fit were the years when we lived in Brooklyn, a childless couple, with plenty of time to walk and talk -- our happiest days were our mornings where we took a 20 minute walk over the Brooklyn Bridge to catch the subway in lower Manhattan instead of our corner,  a brief period between babies back in the aughts when we discovered we had a little extra time during the work week and the last few years, where we find we have the time and energy to once again take care of ourselves. It helps that this coincided with me being able to work at home more often. I find it ironic that just as we started eating better, my metabolism began the inevitable post 40 slowdown and wife, got breast cancer. 

Speaking of my wife, she is 5'6 and about 125 pounds. I can feel her bones when I hug her. She generally eats healthy and exercises about two hours a day, partially to deal with the stress of chemotherapy and partially because the exercise makes her feel better. She has become quite muscular the last few months. Yet, thanks to two children, she will always have a little belly. Guess what Mr. Krause, this is normal. You better learn to accept this otherwise I feel bad for whatever woman you sucker into mating with you.

Oh, by the way, the ability to store fat and not burn it off as fast would have been considered a major asset not that long ago, when most humans were not sure where or when their next heavy meal was coming. Fuel economy isn't just for cars, evolution has made sure humans can live on as few calories as possible and hasn't caught up to cheap food at 24/7 supermarkets. Those who can burn weight off just by thinking about it may have been the ones mocked as weaklings as their bodies  shut down due to lack of fuel.

Am I yelling or am I just a normal parent?

I guess many parents worry if they've gone too far when disciplining their children. With our son, who was diagnosed with Aspberger's a few years ago, it is obvious we had many battles we shouldn't of had as some of those acts of defiance he had were in reality related to his condition and should have been handled differently. Since his diagnosis we have been more diligent in how we discipline him (we basically have to talk him off the edge of the cliff when he hits a wall) . Still I knew I was making mistakes as I still got upset over little things and reacted poorly, especially as he is now 12 and is starting to show flashes of some of the typical teenage behavior. So this summer I finally took affirmative steps to fix whatever bio-chemical misfiring in my head was causing me to lose it for which my doctor prescribed the generic version of Celexa which seems to have resolved many of anger issues. With the reduction of yelling by me since I started on my anti-depressant I thought I had turned a corned. However, our 7 year old daughter is really testing me these days. Makes me wonder how sedated I'm going to have to be during her teen years.

This is the first year she is leaving for school later than our son and I realize I have been spoiled. Last year, when both were in the same school, our son used one aspect of his condition, a fear of being late, to motivate our daughter to be ready for the bus a few minutes early. In years prior, my wife had always taken our daughter to pre-school so this is my first fall getting her off to the bus solo so I was unaware of how slow and sluggish my daughter can be in the morning. As I am time orientated like our son, this thunder storm should have been predicted. It was only a matter of time until our two air masses collided. Well after almost 4 weeks they finally did. We had our first big KA-BOOM moment Monday morning.

The fault is partially mine. I forgot she is not as self motivated to get ready for the bus as our son in the morning and when my phone chirped it's 6 minute warning, which used to be plenty of time for the kids to get jackets on and for me to leash the dogs for the quick walk to the corner, I was a bit surprised to see her still barefoot sitting at the table. I told her to get her shoes and socks on as we were going to be late. I guess I didn't emphasize the need for speed as she lollygagged over to her favorite pink boots instead of putting on her sneakers and socks. As it takes awhile to get those boots on, and she has a busted wing, I told her to put on socks and sneakers. So began another slow walk to her bedroom, followed by a slammed door. Oh boy. I told her to open the door and, when she didn't, repeated my request and then opened it myself to find her struggling to put on long socks she has trouble putting on when she doesn't have a broken arm. As I look down in disgust I hear the dogs barking in excitement for their walk as I  realize that time is ticking. Long story short, we had another delay as I finished dressing her. And then another when I told her, a bit loudly and more excitedly now as time was ticking, she had to wear her rain jacket as her sweat jacket wouldn't go over her temporary cast easily. She then made the move she had made whenever I yelled at her -- putting her fingers in her hears. At this point I wasn't aware I had been yelling, but I've noticed my voice still gets louder when I'm upset, even if there is no emotion behind it. So, of course, when we finally started walking down our driveway I saw the bus on the corner. I told our daughter she would have to run for the bus. No response. I finally yelled RUN! She got the message and, like many children across America cutting it close, ran for the school bus, which she made. Mission accomplished, got her off to school without a major blowup, all is well -- or so I thought.

Later that evening, while my wife was out, our daughter wrote us a note that we were not to read until bedtime. Most of it revolved around our son's upcoming birthday, but the first three sentences were directed to us. The second sentence was a request to stop asking her how her arm was since, as she pointed out in the third sentence, it felt fine. The first sentence was directly at me -- it told me to stop yelling. That crushed me. I thought I had gotten much better at that but not in the eyes of one of the more important judges -- our daughter. My wife pointed out that it was good our daughter felt secure enough to point out this fault to me but it still reenforced my feeling that our daughter views me as someone I'm not, or at least don't want to be.

My father has been gone for almost a quarter of century. As the years march on, memories fade, so that only the more distinctive ones remain. I recall my father being pleasantly surprised when I agreed to join his office summer bowling league when I was 18. He was surprised I wanted to bowl with him, which I did. Though I am still surprised he didn't realize that an 18 year old from Queens would also look for any excuse to not spend a day working in the local supermarket so he could wander around Manhattan, especially as my father worked on the border of Greenwich Village (the location of his office, which has been replaced with luxury housing, was grimy but coming back by the late 80s -- it is now a very hip, but expensive, area of Manhattan -- the bowling alley, a dump back then, is now a major bowling party place). I also remember my father driving us to Florida and Walt Disney World every summer to visit family in the Miami area and have some fun in Orlando, at least until the gas crisis of the late 1970s. I recall my father crying his eyes out on the couch the night my brother died in a car accident. But what I really recall about my father was his temper and how he yelled at us. That is the one, overriding theme of my childhood. Angry dad. Raging dad. Walk on eggshells dad.

Is that how my daughter is going to remember me despite my best efforts, as an angry yeller? Do I still have anger issues to work on (at least the therapist and I will have something to talk about next week)? Or is she being over sensitive to normal parent discipline which includes, on occasion when you want to make sure you are heard, raising your voice? Or is it just my 7 year old being a 7 year old who knows how to push buttons? She knows how to get her brother riled up and now, that the anger seems to be gone and the eggshell walking slowly being forgotten, I wonder if she is amusing herself by pushing my buttons having forgotten what the consequences could be (never hitting, just yelling)? I guess if it is the later, I should be relieved but I wonder how long it will be until I stop second guessing myself.

Grace Under Fire?

One thing that has always bothered me about myself is my sometimes lack of grace under fire. I had hoped that the antidepressants I'm on had buried that but now I am not so sure. On Yom Kippur how I react under pressure was put to the test and while I passed, it was not with flying colors.

Erev Yom Kippur (Tuesday evening) was a fairly normal night for us, a normal night as of late anyway. For those who don't know, Yom Kippur is the Jewish day of atonement, where all adults atone and repent for everything they have done over the past year by praying and fasting for 25 hours, which seem to go incredibly slow unless you go someplace like religious services where you supplant the thoughts of how hungry you are with the wondering if the rabbi will skip a few prayers this year and move this service along so you can go home and molest the bagels, cream cheese, whitefish and lox waiting for you at home. 

Due to her breast cancer and followup treatment, my wife wasn't fasting this year and neither were the children (of course). Additionally, due to all the other craziness going on around here this summer, we're trying to keep the children on as a normal a schedule as possible, which includes karate for our son from 6-6:45 on Tuesday evenings. As sunset and the start of Judaism's most holy day was 6:47 on Tuesday, I made a parent call to ease up on the religious restrictions this year (not that we are all that observant to start with) and let my son go to karate. By time we got home, it was late and I was tired so I decided to skip the evening service. 

So, around 9 or so, as I was in the family room reading, with the TV on as background noise, our son was in the living room playing Minecraft on XBox with his buddies online and my wife was giving our 7 year old daughter a bath. Now I didn't see what happened next but I sure heard it. My wife had stepped out of the bathroom to do something in the living room. Our daughter, who has become especially nervous since my wife's hair fell out from chemotherapy in July, was upset at being ignored and ran out from the bathroom to find my wife. Did I mention our hall and living room have laminate flooring that can be slippery when wet? 

Our daughter ran out and of course slipped and fell. As she fell she put out her arm to catch herself. I didn't hear the thud but I saw heard the howls of pain. She was crying her wrist hurt from her slip and fall. Good thing she has two attorneys on retainer but I'm not sure how we could sue ourselves. We noticed it was a bit bruised but that she was otherwise OK, including able to move her fingers. Figuring it was a bad bruise, or sprain at worse, we put her in a soft splint we had and, after she had calmed down, put her to bed.

The next morning, we asked how she was. She said OK but that her arm still hurt. She was able to move everything around, though if we pressed above the wrist she felt pain. Still figuring it was a sprain, we decided we'd call her doctor, get a scrip for a local place to get her x-rayed and continue on our day, which included going to temple. My wife, who is running out of paid time off due to chemo, was going to work anyway so it all fell on me. No biggie. And for the most part I stayed calm, except for a brief 5 minute period where I yelled, or at least raised my voice, at the children. Again. Something I thought was done. And I still don't know if I raised it over anger, stress, or just to be sure I was heard over the TV.

When I called up the pediatrician's office, they told me all they could do was refer me to an orthopedic surgeon since a possible broken bone was beyond their practice. And here is where the problem began. I couldn't hear the phone number they were giving me. At first it was because I was in the same room as the TV, which was louder than it should have been, Even after I moved out of the room, it was still so loud I couldn't hear the number. I told my daughter to turn off the TV, she didn't choosing to just lower the number. After I finally got the number I went to the family room and, while I didn't lose it, I was pissed. I yelled at my daughter to turn off that TV. Which she did. I then told her, calmly, but loud, to keep the volume lowered then told my son, sitting on the other couch playing video games on his iPod who also didn't hear my pleas for silence, or at least less noise while I was on the phone, to keep the volume of his iPod low enough to hear me. The kids looked at me upset, not as upset when I used to really yell at them, but upset anyway. I took a deep breath and then more calmly, but not calm enough in my memory, told both of them if they don't want me to yell or raise my voice they have to meet me half way and listen when I ask them to do something, reminding them that I sometimes do not know if they have heard me and are just taking their time in responding or they just didn't hear me due to the sounds of whatever electronic devices they are absorbed in.

Now here is my problem, two days later, I still don't know if I yelled at them in anger or because I wanted to be heard. As I indicated above, I sometimes do not act appropriately when stressed but the antidepressant, along with helping me control my anger, has been controlling my anxieties, which sometimes lead to anger (or as Jedi master Yoda put it, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to ... pain? ... something not too good, you can look it up). I guess it is good that I am second guessing my actions as I continue my journey to be a better parent and spouse. Perhaps my reactions were those of a normal stressed parent trying to be heard over competing sounds. But I don't know. I wasn't mad about having to go to another doctor for an exam (though not thrilled either), I really was upset over the noise and that I couldn't hear the phone, even in another room. And while in the past I sense I would have been raging over this, I am disappointed in myself for not completely keeping my emotions in check. I'm not saying I should be the unemotional Mr. Spock, but I should at least be as calm as .... now that I think of it, no one on Star Trek was calm all the time. Scotty usually seemed to keep his temper in check, so I'll go with ... calm as Mr. Scott (excluding times he was all worried about something or another).

Perhaps this is just similar to my fear of gaining weight if I start working in NYC again and lose my workout gym time in the morning due to a longer commute. As my up and down weight over the last 25 years show, even after I make a big deal about putting unhealthy eating in my past, bad habits seem to creep back (one snack at a time in the case of my weight). Will I always fear that a sudden burst of anger that surfaces is the old me saying hello again or is  my reaction to that burst just something normal that I am now able to otherwise control? Thanks to my parents I don't seem to have a good thermostat to determine what is normal and appropriate when responding to domestic issues, which is interesting as I don't have the same problem at work. However, at work I don't have co-workers singing how much they hate their sister as their sister walks up to her brother and farts in his face while screeching at him at a pitch that I worry will break the windows, causing one dog to howl in pain from all the noise while the other dog worries how the cat, sitting on top of the refrigerator, is debating on whether this is the perfect time, while everyone else is distracted, to drop bombs from above on to the little dog's head (cat at least stopped dropping the dog treats when he realized the dog approved of those terrorist attacks).

As to my daughter, her arm was broken. We couldn't get an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon so we went to the ER instead where they made the diagnosis of a bone fracture, much to my surprise. She had a buckle fracture, basically an impacted fracture common in children who fall and use their arm to brace themselves. She had to get a temporary cast, which posed a problem as we were dressed for temple and she was wearing a dress with arms too tight to fit over the temporary cast. With the choice between cutting her sleeve or putting on an alternative outfit, she quickly chose alternate outfit. Initially we couldn't find scrubs that fit her but fortunately I was wearing t-shirt under my dress shirt so she got a nice white dress to go with her white temporary cast (an older female nurse later came in, muttered "MEN!," and came back with child sized scrubs). It was after that my daughter got upset, which ended up with us going to my wife's office so our daughter could be consoled by her mommy.

With the morning services shot, I figured we'd aim for the afternoon service but our daughter, ever the fashion diva, insisted she couldn't go in scrubs, even if she was just going to sit in babysitting, though she could go out for lunch dressed like this (hint hint). Now I normally like Yom Kippur as it is the one day of the year I try to really observe religious restrictions, including not eating and going completely offline for the day. I found that it is very relaxing to avoid going online for the day and ignoring the outside world and just spend the day meditating as the rabbi and chorus pray and sing. I also enjoy thinking of the food waiting for me at break fast time, which I usually buy between the morning and afternoon services at the local supermarket (unless I buy them the day before at the bagel store that closes for the Jewish holiday). Not this year.

While at the hospital, waiting for the doctors, as my daughter watched the Disney channel on the TV in her room and my son played on his iPod, I found nothing to read in my daughter's room so I took out my phone and went online, at which point I felt myself rejoining the outside world (as if driving to the ER and interacting with medical staff hadn't done the same). So when my wife suggested we go to a nearby diner for lunch I figured, well I went online, might as well eat. So I did. I have to admit, I really did miss my bagel and lox treat for dinner (I felt I hadn't earned the meal so I skipped it this year, at least I made late afternoon and the concluding service which I decided covered lunch) but this year being a dad took precedence. At least I didn't get pissed over that. And why would I? Kids happen, or something like that.

Really, aside from the brief period of when I was making the calls and our arrival at the ER, I was pretty calm and rational. Never lost it, didn't really have a reason to, but I kept my cool. Still, it bothers me that I felt my anxiousness coming up when I was making the calls to the doctor, again when I told the children we were going to the ER and one more time when my daughter was walking very slowly through the hospital parking lot (I am constantly reminding her to walk more quickly and directly through parking lots in lieu of her usual wandering, unpredictable pace and path). I feel I was not the perfect dad, calm, cool and collected. Though I mostly held it together, I know I was a bit more cross in the living room and the parking lot than I should have been. And I still don't know if my anxiousness and reactions to those events was just a normal parent reaction when your child is sick and you are worried (which for me is very tough, my brother's death at 15 led to me becoming an overprotective parent anyway) or a sign that all is not as well in my head with my bio-chem balance as I thought they had become, even though I did not lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster as I may have in the past. Something to bring up with the therapist next time.