Breaking The Cycle Of Stress
Oh single parents? Nothing strikes fear into the heart more than your kids getting sick when you need to go to work, doesn’t it? Today Anthony slept well, and woke up with no fever. So I planned on his going to school while I did one short quick case, then I’d pick him up and take him home and to the doctor…
He wanted to go to his grandmother, who is out of the way, and needs an extra twenty minutes for my commute. This took some negotiation on both parts…I know full well if it had been me I’d have stayed home if I was back in the fourth grade…with single parenting much of the time you ‘make do’.
Fortunately, I was the first to go home on the list, and although I was booked on an eleven o’clock case, the charge nurse was kind, and is also a single mother. She rearranged the cases so after my first, I could go home.
It was the first time in ages I made a personal call in the O.R. It was awkward booking an appointment but what could I do?
I even took the opportunity on the way home to check out an alternate route. This one will save me about ten minutes!
Mouse Update
Yes I still have mice–as companions to the parrot, Harry Bird, and sometimes food to Cecil our ball python who is five years old.
The females give birth every three weeks. As a result, I’ve become good friends with the pet store. I call myself a ‘breeder with love’ because each and every one of these mice enjoy being raised as mice, by their mother, before they go to the pet shop. Harry is happy and we all enjoy the babies.
Today mama gave birth to like, twenty-five babies. But the substrate in the cage was soiled from a leaky water bottle, and needed changing anyhow. It couldn’t wait. So I took all the mice out, except for mom and babies. I gave new substrate and home, and put all but five adults and three fuzzies back in the cage.
I thought mama would be happy with the new arrangement. I’ve done this before…you can imagine my surprise when I found two dead babies in the cage tonight. I fished them out. I gave them the Transition symbol. And I returned them to Gaia, and let the faeries in the garden watch over their bodies.
I was sad.
Sometimes I just can’t figure mice out.
Mama mouse has her reasons–and I trust her judgement. She knows just how much life she can manage. Mother mice do some very strange things-to us with out limited perspective watching it–but somehow mice are a successful animal on the planet, yes?
When you encounter something that upsets you–like a mouse mom killing one of her babies–try to see it from the view of the mouse. Some breeders think these moms know if a baby ‘isn’t right’ and ‘euthanize it’. Others say they are ‘mean’. How can you know the difference? The fact of the matter is that these mice are very inbred, about four generations, and it’s just about the time for something ‘genetic’ to show up. Or, perhaps, two litters happened at once (mom was ready to POP! LOL, I knew it’s her) came at once, and a mom went to the pet shop?
As an aside, I have to share the most precious moment of the day–sorting the mice with my son. I wanted the males only to go to the pet store today, because I knew they wouldn’t affect any babies. So I would lift them up by the tail and look…it’s not always testicles you see, but the distance between where the anus is and the urethra. I also look for the milk line of nipples. Anthony watched INTENTLY so I cheerfully called out to each mouse, ‘Got balls? No? Okay!’ and set it down with the rest. The ones that did went to the shop in a different container. OH man, if you want to make an under-the-weather nine-year old laugh his head off, all you have to do is that…I bet that’s what he’ll speak about at my funeral fifty years from now…sheesh!
Doctor Mom and the Pediatrician
She was good. I helped her. I gave her the results of my work-up yesterday–deep cough, an asthma equivalent to a wheeze really, For two days. No fever. Clear chest. Pulse ox 98%…
She was like, ‘You have a home pulse ox?!’
I was like, ‘Yeah!’
There were two real LOW points for me. I got the diagnosis. But the clash between my world and hers was never so apparent…
- first I cancelled MY appointment with his counselor (it’s how counseling works with kids–a double–you go and talk about how the kid is doing separately, and later the kid goes alone so the kid can heal the fastest) to take him to the doc.
- I got a text from a colleague asking to switch calls to my benefit–a huge help for me–but I had to negotiate then and there during the doctor visit. I apologized. She had no way to know how serious it is to strike fast to make a call swap work out and seal the deal. I was embarrassed to see that this is what my life has become…me texting on a cell phone while my son’s doctor is talking to us.
- The thought of Anthony taking breathing treatments at school freaked me out–she wanted a spacer and a puffer every four hours. You try that when you have to register the medicine, fill out a form, give it to a teacher every morning, and take it home with you each night, especially with so many different caregivers (Mana, dad, sitters) involved? You need to have the logistics of a general at your disposal to coordinate that! She countered with, ‘he can just have one at school?’ Dude, he would need one at dad, one at grandma, one at sitter, one here–did you know I have crappy insurance and a spacer alone costs me seventy bucks?! It’s true. I have crappy insurance. The deductible is SO high, that when I went for my colonoscopy the surgery center felt sorry for me and dropped the price in half from twelve hundred to six hundred dollars for my co-pay.
- I am customer for ten years. He works there, and there is an old owner.
- Five years ago, he buys the shop from retiring owner.
- Earlier this year, the puppies catch parvovirus–it takes like Three thousand in vet bills to save the ones at the store. Then no more puppies are sold. (To energy heal you must get to the same ‘energy match’ as your person you work upon, so I TALK with people!)
- Around this time Eric is limping, and complains of intolerable pain for two years in hip and both knees that doctors can’t figure out and it’s stopped his skateboarding.
- DWR does a Reiki Request for Eric with his full permission.
- One week later he is totally fine and pain free and starting to skateboard again.
- I offer Reiki instruction if interested–as it’s got Eric giddy and he says, ‘I want to learn this Eastern thing!’
- no instruction takes place because there is no request.
- The mice–back and forth, back and forth, Cecil likes Eric’s mice, and when I have a full cage I bring them to Eric.
- Today I am comped eight dollars.
- All this time, Eric is getting more calm, more grounded, more connected to purpose, more connected to source, and more open to Spirit–EVEN THOUGH HE NEVER TAKES A CLASS IN REIKI and that is OKAY…
- No soul will be lost.
- She has complete and total trust in the need for each soul to progress at its own speed–there is NO RUSH.
- Even if it will take eternity, all souls will ultimately find their way back to merge with Her.
Sirian Heaven 