Would You Be A Dear and NOT Send Your Sick Child to School?!

Oiy, the responsibilities of being a parent! What do children need? What DON'T they need? It's true that children need a lot. As a mom, I know that children of all ages need a lot of attention. Babies need almost constant feeding, holding, cuddling, and loving. As they get older, they need feeding, hugging, playing, talking, and LOTS of question-answering. My oldest is 9 so I can only share my experiences up to that age and 9 year olds have a lot of questions... and homework. My 5 little ones keep me busy and I am a full-time stay-at-home-mom (SAHM). I never intended to be a working mom. It made it even easier for me the fact that I grew up with a SAHM and a working dad who was supportive of my dedicated SAHM. No one places a monetary value on the work a SAHM does but I believe there is nothing more important than raising and training and nurturing the next generation. That's me - my choice.

Children are precious. Human life is sacred. Health is supreme, number one, top of the list... What parent wouldn't do EVERYTHING to save their child's life? Protect their child from life threatening dangers? Illness??? So why 'o why do parents drive their children around unrestrained and not buckled into safety seats? Why do they leave their children unattended in cars while they drop off a child or go grocery shopping?!!! And the biggie that really has me on a rant is WHY DO THEY SEND THEIR SICK CHILDREN TO SCHOOL??!!!

My 3 year old daughter, H., has been sick more days than well in the past month. I have had to keep her home 4 times over periods of 3-6 days to get well enough to return to her pre-school only to be struck down again with the flu or some other virus. I see feverish, coughing, spluttering, ill kids being dropped off every day at H.'s pre-school and it drives me insane. I spoke with the teachers and they say "what can we do?" SAY WHAT???? "The parents need to go to work, they can't afford to stay home everyday..." EXCUSE ME?!!!! The main teacher complained that she has called parents repeatedly to collect a sick and feverish child from pre-school and the parents refuse. WHAT? Am I crazy or is that unacceptable? A few mothers have actually said to me, "Not everyone has the luxury of not working and staying home whenever their kid is sick...". Is that some kind of insult? I promise you, if I become a working-mom and my child is sick, my child takes priority - not my job. You couldn't put a price on that.

The main reason that being a SAHM is not a "popular choice" is because people need the money. For some, it's not possible to do without the 2nd salary. I'll confide that we live according to our means. We don't suffer for anything. True, I don't buy myself lots of new clothes or shoes or jewelery, fancy vacations, etc.. It's not important to me. That's a choice my husband and I made. Having said all that, I do not have double standards. A child is a mini-adult. Would an adult subject themselves to a day at work if they were feeling ill? When a child is sick, they need rest and care not to mention the dangers of spreading the illness to other children... and so we arrive at the reason why I have kept my 3 year old daughter home from pre-school for more than a week. I was finally able to get her her first dose of Flu-mist and plan to get the 2nd dose before I'll even consider sending her back into the germ-fest that is her pre-school.

It's hard for some to understand or accept that motherhood is fulfilling in itself and easy to think a mother who doesn't have a career is bored or boring or useless to society. I think that being with my baby and children is both enjoyable and rewarding in a way that even the most prestigious career could never be. The fact is NO ONE can or will care for my kids as I do. Watch out for this mama because I will do EVERYTHING to protect my children. Don't get in my way.

Not Quite the Diagnosis I Was Hoping For

It's been two weeks since the fine needle biopsy. I've been waiting for that call and it came today. I was completely unprepared for a drive into Jerusalem... sans GPS, on my own with two tots. (My 3 year old daughter has been home for over a week - a story I might share in a separate post). I went into Google Maps and printed out directions which I apparently did not follow very well because it took me 90 minutes to drive a 41 minute journey - story of my life. Thanks to 2 Arab taxi drivers and an apparently German lady tourist and her handy map I made it in the end. The German lady tourist was amazing! She told the angry drivers where they could go while my car idled alongside hers and she looked up the hospital in her Carta map! She was my hero today.

The place I needed to go within the hospital is a clinic that primarily operates as a mammography center. Lots of women and their stressed out husbands. I anticipated a quick wait and then very easy news/results from the Doctor.

What I didn't expect was the ceremonial wait in the private room and the somber look on the doctor's face as he proceeded to imply that I have a non-benign tumor. The diagnosis: Myoepithelioma or Myoepithelial Carcinoma. I saw the words, "carcinoma" on the paper with my name on it. I let him speak. I didn't interrupt. When he was done I started asking. Basically I left in tears understanding FROM THE DOCTOR that I need surgery ASAP to remove the parotid gland and I may or may not need chemotherapy or whatever other treatments are out there. I left the clinic thinking I had crossed over that red line - a CANCER patient.

Yes, I cried the whole way home.

One swift Googling, as soon as I got home, made it pretty clear that the "diagnosis" was more like an inconclusive tushy-covering. No doctor wants to be sued (except maybe my family doctor, Dr. B.). Myoepithelioma is most often benign. It's a mixed-cell tumor. From what I understand, Myoepithelioma and Myoepithelial Carcinoma are very rare. What are the chances, right?

My parents spent the rest of the day researching every possibility with their doctor friends who are ENT surgeon and breast cancer surgery specialist and pathologist etc.. The next step is to go back to my ENT and see what she recommends. I'll probably need a head CT before surgery and I'll need to find an excellent neck surgeon.

*sigh*

It's a lot to take in. I have no choice but to sit tight and wait for each step and take it as it comes. I'm still a mama... and that doesn't change just because I'm worried I could fall into that 20% of rare parotid tumor cases that are actually cancer....

I have to wait and see.

Ouch! My Sternocleidomastoid Hurts! (most likely...)

Sternocleidomastoid is not a curse-word in some foreign language. As a licensed physical therapist, I promise you it is a real body part... a muscle in your neck. Mine is in spasm.

Today was the day for my parotid tumor biopsy. While we were off to a great start this morning with the kids all getting ready and out-the-door on time, DH and I had a grueling ride made twice as long due to GPS fail... actually it was "me" fail. I foolishly entered the name of the hospital rather than the address... and this took us to the center of the Old City. I'm not joking. If you have ever driven a minivan through the streets of the Old City, Jerusalem you would surely NOT be laughing right now. We stopped to ask a cop what to do... he had no clue. I called the hospital and (this part you can laugh at...) the secretary said, "Don't you know how to use a GPS? You enter the address..." - and she gave me the address.... and promised me I would be just on time... even though I was clearly going to arrive 20 minutes later than planned.

By the grace of GPS my DH got us to the hospital only 5 minutes later than my appointment. I won't go into too many details. I hate being held down and told not to move - that freaks me out more than the anticipation of pain. The senior doctor obviously knew what he was doing and was also educating a younger doctor how to perform a biopsy. With my head and neck immobilized and being held down via the ultrasound head, the doctor injected lidocaine and then exclaimed, "Oh damn! I just made a mistake!" WHAT??! and I whimpered and he said, "No, not on you, the computer."

Anyways. It's not a fun procedure but it wasn't painful. The pressure and noises the equipment made inside my neck was just... well, that part was really gross and made me squirm. The doctor had a difficult time getting the bleeding to stop too and I wonder if that wasn't caused by taking 800 mg. of ibuprofen for a throbbing headache I woke up with. Oops.

I asked the doctor what he thought. He said it looks like a tumor. In his opinion it's most likely a pleomorphic adenoma which is most likely benign and will most likely need to be surgically removed. I most likely hope that the doctor most likely knows what he's talking about. He also informed me that the area will most likely be sore and tender for the next few days and I shouldn't "make mischief".... Huh?

DH, Baby E., and I headed out for coffee and a treat straight afterward. DH had hot apple strudel with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top and I had cheese cake that was almost worth it and most likely made the whole ordeal less horrible. As the lidocaine wore off I began to feel the muscle spasm. You can actually see the ropey sternocleidomastoid standing out of my neck. I'm sure it's most likely just a protective muscle spasm and I hope it goes away quickly. I am left with a gloom and doom kinda feeling about people who really are sick and have to endure far worse... they deserve our prayers.

I'll have results from the biopsy within 10-21 days which, I need to pick up in person. Coffee date anyone?

Wish me luck.