44) Child with cancer lives here

We live in suburbia on a busy-ish street. It's a tertiary road, but it has a lot of foot traffic. It also connects to major roads at either end, and people use it as a shortcut to bypass traffic. The street is busier than what I thought it would be when we got our place. Now with two young boys, I'd like to move to a quieter street, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. There's too much going on with E, and his treatments/appointments, as well as dealing with an intensely busy 3 year old.

I sometimes feel like a bad neighbour. It snowed a couple of weeks ago. Twice. Monday January 29th overnight into Tuesday January 30th, and again on Wednesday January 31st. I didn't get out to shovel the sidewalk either time.

On Tuesday the 30th, we were at the hospital with E for bloodwork. E ended up needing a transfusion because his hemoglobin levels were low. We were at the hospital for most of the day since we first had to wait for blood, and then the hemoglobin transfusion process takes 4 hours: 3 hours to transfuse, and 1 more hour to monitor for allergic reaction. We were at the hospital longer than anticipated, so I had to leave and pick up J from daycare. I grabbed some dinner from home, and went back to the hospital to eat, and wait a couple more hours. By the time we got home, and got the boys put to bed, I was completely exhausted.

On Wednesday the 31st, my wife and I had an appointment in regard to J, and we both needed to be there. My wife's aunt helped us out by coming out to stay with E so that we were both able to go without the distraction of having to drag E along with us. Again, with travel time, the appointment, dinner prep, baths, and bedtime routine, I was once again completely exhausted by the time the boys fell asleep.

Luckily, on February 1st, we had a thaw, and the warm temperatures melted away the snow and my feelings of guilt.

I feel embarrassed when I'm not able to shovel the sidewalk. I imagine that people walking by see an unshoveled mess of snow and assume that we're lazy. I feel like we're that proverbial house that has a broken down, rusting car up on cinder blocks on the front lawn. I almost want to put up a sign that reads "child with cancer lives here" to explain away the lack of snow removal.

I suppose I shouldn't project my feelings of guilt on to what others may or may not be thinking. I shouldn't really care what people might think, since they don't know our situation. It's not an ongoing thing, it just happened that it snowed over a couple of days where I had pre-existing commitments where I couldn't get the snow cleaned. I have a limited amount of energy, so first and foremost, I am going to direct it to ensure that E gets to his appointments so he can undergo the treatments he needs.