My wife and I have a good marriage. It's not perfect, but I don't think anyone's is. We work well together, and the skills & interests we bring to the relationship compliment each other. My wife doesn't like to cook, but I do. I don't like to do dishes, but my wife does. Grocery shopping isn't really my wife's thing, but I enjoy it. Similar to the above examples, many aspects of our marriage just dovetail nicely.
It's a grueling ordeal to have a child who is critically ill. I feel like a sponge that absorbs stress. I'm at my limit, but I'm still up to my eyeballs in stress, and lately I feel like I don't have anywhere else to put it.
I'm stressed out about E. Frontline treatment is almost done, and the Maintenance phase is on the horizon. We're still waiting for our next lumbar puncture after our oncologist told us that there were blasts found in E's spinal blood after his last procedure. His treatment seems to be continuing smoothly, but there's always the feeling that the relapse anvil is hanging over your head.
I'm stressed about J. He has some behaviour issues we're trying to sort out with things like play therapy etc., but I'm concerned. We don't know what it is that causes his outbursts and disruptive behaviour, and he's still to young to be officially diagnosed with anything. I already feel badly enough that E's leukemia is causing J to have an abnormal childhood. I just want him to be a happy little boy. I constantly worry that I don't have the energy and patience to properly deal with his personality and that he'll grow up resenting me.
I'm stressed about my wife. I'm not going to write about her problems, but I will say that she's had a few nagging minor health issues in the past couple of months, and I worry about her.
Stress & worry, worry & stress. It's a recurring theme. Along with it comes insomnia or restless sleep. I either can't fall asleep until after midnight, or I pass out for an unquiet night of slumber while I'm snuggling with E at his bedtime. I feel like a bundle of nerves from the moment I open my eyes in the morning. Combining stress with sleepless nights is never a good thing. It saps your patience. It atrophies the logical part of your brain. It transforms you into a grumpy, negative, bitter arsehole. I already have my own quirks and quarks: I'm a perfectionist, and I'm quite
particular about things. I'm probably undiagnosed OCD if I want to talk
about it openly and bluntly. I have problems letting go of thoughts that
upset me, and they rattle around in my head. Everything going on with my family just brings my little idiosyncrasies a little more to the forefront.
Last Sunday, my wife decided to make pancakes for J. She used a metal spatula, and scratched our nonstick frying pan. I was quite upset about it, and I ruminated about it for most of the day. Now that the nonstick coating is scratched, the pan should probably be tossed. It's an annoyance, it could have easily been avoided, and now we'll probably need to buy a new one. When I think about what happened, I don't think I was upset about the scratch; I was upset about the symbolism of the scratch. My perfectionism was fully in play, but I think I was so bothered by it because like E's leukemia diagnosis, it was something that happened that was beyond my control. I think I'm in a state where I feel the need to be able to control certain parts of my life, because other aspects feel like they're just flapping in the wind.
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