I didn’t get around to wrapping up the week with the Hitwave this week. The Apple was being a little tetchy, and quite frankly, I didn’t have the mindset to sort it out. You see, when we have a transfusion looming, there is an undercurrent of stress in my life that doesn’t properly surface until that cannula is finally in place and the ‘danger period’ of the first bag of blood is over. It’s only then that it comes frothing to the top, and I almost cry with the relief and the gratitude of making it through. And that’s when I exhale. When I know we haven’t drowned.

In the week or so leading up to transfusion day, the only times I really stop flipping the scenarios over and over in my mind are when I’m at work, or when I’m tapping away on these keys.

Blogging as therapy? Say yessir. Work as an escape? You betcha sweet corpuscles. And so in these weeks- the ones at the pointy end of the quarter- I am even more grateful than ever to have such wonderful things in my life. Places where I can be in the moment, focussed, and in flow.

I’m pretty lucky to have these two domains, these things that I see as my life’s work.

It’s been a big day for my little girl and I. If you follow my spamming on any of the Socials, you would have seen some of the details. You might know that they couldn’t get the cannula to pierce a vein cleanly: not the first, the second or the third time. It took four punctures, a new doctor, my insistence of using the Accuvein (the infrared vein finder) and a smaller cannula, to finally get the sucker in.

Coco is only seven years old. I think that is a lot for a kid to go through.

Showing off the new blood

So today, I have two hits:

1. I am insanely grateful to the wonderful Cass, who played and played and sang her heart out during all of this.

Cass is the music therapy chick at the hospital. She is sweet and gentle and kind, and a bit of a hippy. If I am to be honest here (and what is the use of this blog if I’m not?) I thought she was a dickhead when I first met her. She came into our room, at a particularly harrowing moment, espousing the benefits of music for kids undergoing procedures.

I wanted to tell her to fuck off.

We were right IN something. Something BIG. Bloody pop tunes weren’t going to help our situation. I gritted my teeth and said, sure, play if you want (and in my head I probably called her a few names).
And so she played.

And it made all the difference. She has a voice of an angel and an energy to match, and Coco resonated with her immediately, and the beauty of Cass calmed her, in a beat.

So now I am in love with Cass and her presence. Today she played everything Coco requested (except that song from Frozen, but ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat): Riptide, Happy, Eye Of The Tiger…. Plus an improv of her own about Coco’s favourite things, where we yelled out stuff, and she made it all into a song.

Cass, I don’t even know if you are real, or if I dreamt you up, but bloody hell, you ROCK.

2.  Blood donors.

Of course.

I wish you could all see the change in our kid today. She is strong and brave and tolerant, and so if you met her earlier this week you would think that she’s just a normal kid. You might not realise that she really was just going through the motions, at times. The motions of breathing and walking and eating. Sure, she still laughed, she still had fun, she still raced to watch Family Feud every night, but tonight? Oh man, that kid is ALIVE.

She is drunk on life and energy and joy. I wish you could hear that laugh of hers that is ringing out over Sunrise Beach tonight, because it truly is an elixir for the soul.

Perhaps if you close your eyes you might hear her at your place? I can tell you right now, it’s worth a try.

I couldn’t get a good pic- there was “too much” laughing!

…From The Ashers xx