43 Things That Have Happened Before 43

I turned 43 today.

I vaguely remember promising to write up some grand “reflections on turning 40”post just a couple of months ago. It was just a couple of months, wasn’t it?

LOL. 40 is so three years ago now. I’ll try again at 50.

Now we’ve established that this is not going to be anything resembling a grand reflection, I thought maybe some of you might like to know what’s been going on.

(Also, I thought I might like to be able to remember some of this in a couple of years, when I’m wondering what I was doing around the time I turned 43 and why there’s a whole period of my life that’s just a blur.)

So, in no particular (aka “chronological”) order, here are 43 things that have happened in the last couple of months.

1. We left Port Vila for Australia on December 29^th.
2. Landing in Brisbane that day, I ticked “returning resident” on an immigration entry form for Australia for the first time in 17 years.
3. It felt super weird, and that was only the start. I am perpetually amazed by how wide the gap actually is between #theorytopractice. I mean… people pay me to dish out advice on coping with change and transition, among other things. When people in Vila remarked in December how “together” I seemed given we had a major move coming up, I even said that the hard part was coming once we actually made the jump and the whole context changed. But in situations like these I’m still, always, left stunned and reeling when it actually feels hard. Because why doesn’t knowledge = exemption? Why, damnit?
4. Mike went back to Port Vila on January 6^th.
5. Everyone felt sad.
6. I spent more than $600 buying new school uniforms and bags for the kids. The hidden costs associated with changing schools are no joke.
7. In the process I realized that my #twins could really not continue to share all their clothes as they have been doing since Alex was 18 months old and Dominic was three and a half. Alex (who is built like #KungFuPanda) now outweighs Dominic by more than six kilos and needs to be wearing clothes two sizes larger than his older brother (who is built like #Spiderman.)
8. If you’re bothering to read this rather random list, you probably know a bit about our family history, and you might remember that we started Dominic on Ritalin in October after he was diagnosed with ADHD. At first, Ritalin seemed to be doing exactly what we’d hoped it would for him, but two weeks into the trial we hit a majorly worrying speed bump when Dominic suddenly started experiencing physical tics (shoulder shrugging & jerking, throat clearing). Then Dominic started to have trouble getting his words out. Sometimes, after repeating the same word or phrase at the beginning of a sentence a dozen times, he would start hitting himself in the head in frustration. Long story short, we discontinued Ritalin after 7 weeks, and the tics slowly started to disappear. When we discussed all of this with our pediatrician in Australia a week after landing in-country, we collectively decided to try a different, non-stimulant medication called Straterra before risking going back on Ritalin. We started Straterra in mid-January and it ushered in…
9. Eleven days of parenting hell. For Dominic, even the lowest dose of Straterra = upping the anger dial x10. There was screaming. There was storming out (and in, and upstairs, and downstairs.) There were slamming doors. There was basically no eating. There was a lot of hitting. And 11 days in, there was Mummy deciding that we were going off Strattera before the new school started because it didn’t matter if it did help with focus and concentration (which wasn’t a given, anyway) the side effects were so not worth it.
10. We went off Strattera. Life and mood improved. I felt pretty exhausted, though, because every single one of these decisions (go on medication, go off it, switch meds, change dose, figure out tics) takes hours of research and thinking and trying so hard to discern what the best thing is to do. And then realizing you’ll never know for sure and you just have to make a decision and move forward anyway.
11. A huge and grueling consulting project I’d been working on for several months was finally submitted. It was a sad and difficult report to write, and the three of us held our breath that we weren’t collectively going to get sued when we filed the report.
12. We didn’t get sued (yet, anyway).
13. Mike and I had our tenth wedding anniversary. We celebrated by… Scratch that. We didn’t celebrate. Scheduling a re-do for September when we’re together.
14. Alex continued his endearing/exhausting habit of coming into my bedroom multiple times a night looking for a hug, or a safe-haven in my bed, or because he “is sooooo lonely,” or (as he’s also told me more than once when I asked him once why he was my bedroom again), to check if I was still alive. Since I have never done or said anything that might suggest to Alex that I wouldn’t be alive on any given morning, I don’t know what to do with that particular soundbyte apart from continue to dish out hugs on demand, and do my best to never get cross when I hear the door open in the wee dark hours.
15. I did great at not getting cross at midnight (and 2am, and 4am). Not so good, it seems, at not getting cross at other times (6:30pm bath-and-teeth-time, I’m looking at you.) I got so tired and grumpy that Mum and Dad staged an intervention and moved the kids mattresses down to the floor of their bedroom downstairs.
16. I received the sort of email no parent ever wants to get from the principal. Dominic’s behavior at school had earned him several private tete-a-tete’s with the principal by the end of week three. Dominic didn’t seem too cowed by these experiences, and blithely continued to report that school was “good” when he jumped in the car every afternoon. So #atleastthatissomething #ithink.
17. I got a toothache. Again. In the same tooth that’s been flaring up on and off for more than two years now, and on which I’ve had five (FIVE!!!) failed root canal treatments.
18. I threw up my hands, and scheduled an emergency dental appointment to get it extracted #enoughalready.
19. As if to ensure I developed full blown PDT (Post-Dental-Trauma) I developed dry socket two days after the surgery. Dry socket = exposed nerves and bone in your mouth, which = unrelenting, severe pain until said nerves and bones are no longer exposed (which takes until new tissue grows over everything).
20. I took painkillers every three hours (for someone who is not a doctor or a pharmacist, I know a lot about staggering different substances to best effect) around the clock for two weeks.
21. I seriously was starting to think that it may not be worth hanging in there until 43, much less 44, when the pain finally started to ease.
22. I started to do life again instead of just focusing on surviving.
23. I started seeing a therapist with Dominic once every two weeks. With therapy, physio, lymph treatments for me, pediatrician, GP and various other appointments on the schedule things were feeling busy.
24. Life was also feeling hard. I felt like life should be feeling easier than it was, and I felt… glum.
25. Three weeks after they moved in with their grandparents, the kids finally moved out of Mum and Dad’s bedroom and back upstairs with me.
26. After two nights of having them back, I really wanted to send them downstairs again, but knew I couldn’t #adulting #parenting.
27. We put in an offer on a house here in Australia—a house Mike had not yet seen. (We did this in Vila, too, Mike put an offer in on our house there before I ever saw it, so I reckon this may become our family M.O. around buying houses—we will only buy houses that only one of us has seen #extremeadventuresinrealestate #trustexercise #highriskmovesinmarriage.)
28. I started casually mentioning the possibility => likelihood => certainty that “after Daddy comes here to live” we would be moving out of Nana and Papa’s and into our own house. Every time I brought this up, Dominic declared that we would be doing no such thing. That, indeed, we would be living at Nana and Papa’s “forever, until we died.” And every time he said this I had to stop myself from replying, “sounds fine by me, you can stay here then” because (1) those are words unbecoming the soon-to-be 43-year-old in the equation, and (2) my mother would never go for that.
29. I wondered why both my children seem episodically focused on death. I mean, they don’t even watch Disney movies, for crying out loud. How is this even much of a concept for them yet?
30. After six weeks apart, Mike arrived for a week-long visit.
31. I told Mike he wasn’t allowed to kiss me all week because my mouth was still strictly a no-go zone. In fact, I wasn’t at all sure if we would ever kiss again. Mike nodded thoughtfully and sensibly said nothing.
32. Everyone except Dad and Dominic and Mike promptly came down with a virus.
33. Alex started to have trouble breathing.
34. We took him to the doctor (thank goodness) who diagnosed severe post-viral croup and gave him steroids.
35. The doctor told Alex he could sleep in a mattress on the floor of my bedroom all week. Alex was delighted by this news. The doctor told me that this was necessary in case Alex started to struggle so much in the middle of the night we needed to rush him to Emergency Room #mumsonotdelighted.
36. Between listening to Alex snore and wondering how/whether he was getting enough air, and just listening to Alex snore, I didn’t get a lot of sleep for the next two nights, so then I put Alex’s mattress down in the end bedroom, with Mike.
37. We had to take Alex back to the doctor twice more for more steroids. They also prescribed Ventolin and a spacer which we thankfully only needed to use once.
38. I had to say “no” 568 times over the next week to requests/demands from both my children that I give them a “puff” of Ventolin using the “super-cool” spacer apparatus. There were tears over this issue (and they were almost mine).
39. We had our first IEP meeting for Dominic at the kid’s new school. I walked out of the meeting impressed and relieved that the learning support coordinator and his teacher are trying so hard to understand our complicated little package, and depressed after having heard things like, “It’s four weeks into the term and Dominic hasn’t completed a single task I’ve asked the class to do.”
40. Mike left to go back to Vila.
41. Everyone felt sad.
42. Mike came down with the virus but bad the next day, on his birthday. Sorry, Mike. Happy birthday. We love you.
43. After another appointment with the pediatrician we started Dominic back on Ritalin on a super-low dose (a quarter of a tablet). Two weeks into the new trial we’re cautiously optimistic. Tic levels have stayed low, and teachers are reporting that even that that tiny micro-dose makes a difference in Dominic’s ability to get something done in the classroom… if he feels like it. Next decision… when and how to level up.

Speaking of leveling up… I level up to 43 today. And when I read this list I guess it’s not surprising that sometimes my body, my head, and my heart feel more like I’m leveling up to 86.

When I take 4.3 minutes (all I can reasonably spare this morning before starting work) to think about the next year, I am choosing to have high hopes.

I hope that by the time I hit 44 we’ll feel much more grounded as a family in all sorts of ways.

I’m still taking penicillin morning and night after my last bout of cellulitis (hello, way back at my sort-of-sucky 42^nd birthday) and I hope I can find a way to go off that this year without getting dangerously sick again.

I hope we can find a way to keep Dominic on his meds without it causing all sorts of other problems for him. And I #hopehopehope we’ll be much further ahead with him and as a family in learning to use feelings words, choosing to use calming strategies when we need them, and managing anger more gracefully.

I hope we learn to love living in Australia. This move that is not what Mike and I would have chosen at this time. Despite that, I hope it evolves into a real season of rest and renewal for us all.

And I hope that next year when Mike and I throw a “Big-4-without-the-0” party to celebrate turning 44, we look back on how far we’ve come this year and spot many bright glimmers of joy along the road.

Thanks for tracking along. If you’ve read this far, you’re pretty amazing and have a great working ability to pay attention. So, just in case you were wondering, you probably don’t need any Ritalin to help you along in that department. You’re all good on that front.

I hope each and every one of you has a wonderful and wonder-filled next 365 days as well.

🙂
Lisa

P.S. And if you’re on facebook, do check out my birthday fundraisers for World Vision Australia and World Vision US for the Cyclone Idai response in Southern Africa. Links on my timeline. What’s happening over there right now is catastrophic and heartbreaking, so if you’re not on facebook, please consider making a donation to the charity of your choice.